King of the Road

Today in the academy we took out a convoy of Crown Vics, as part of our Mobile Field Force training. Let me just say, there is nothing that can compare to the feeling of participating in a vehicle convoy of police cruisers, you truly feel as though you are king of the road.

Where I grew up, there was an over abundance of open roads, often free of homes and intersections for stretches that lasted a country mile of more. Yet even with all that open space, there were still things that you couldn't do, things that you couldn't practice. I'm not talking about test and tuning, drag racing, or high speed jaunts to Toledo. Those were all things that you could get away with, as patrol cars were nowhere to be found. What I'm talking about is coordinate vehicle exercises through a city, done with precision, and done legally. I'm within one week of graduating, and I have to say that today was probably the most exciting, as well as practical exercise we have done. Think of it as playing leap frog, only with vehicles.

We had a designated lead car which coordinated the operation, a van, which served as our vehicle we were escorting, and then 6 additional scout cars in which we each took our turns behind the wheel. The lead vehicle would radio us and assign 1 or 2 vehicles to an intersection, stopping traffic prior to the convoy arriving at the intersection. After the trailing vehicle passed the blocking vehicles, they would sound the horn twice, and the blocking vehicles would lay on the throttle catching up to the pack. During my time I had one memory lapse. As I was blocking traffic, the convoy took a right turn behind me. I said to myself "Damn, I'm gonna have to turn around." My partner then informed me "No you don't, just throw in in reverse!" That's when I remembered "Hell, we're the po-leece! I got lights and sirens and all eyes our on me, of course I can just throw it in reverse and join the convoy!"

About the only downside is that recruits don't exactly get top of the line cruisers for such an exercise. In fact, ours was on it's last leg, acting as though the transmission may have been ready to call it quits. On the freeway, at higher speeds, our car called it quits at about 75 mph, jerking violently as if it was hitting a speed governor. That said, it was still a blast, and by day's end you would have thought we were running a legit convoy, as opposed to just a training exercise.

With eaching passing training involving vehicles I have a growing itch to go either road course racing, or as mentioned before, top speed racing out west. As it is, I'll be confined to walking the beat for 6 months, then confined to jump man riding shotgun, only to earn the right to get behind the wheel again after probably a few years of service.