Chuck Frank wrote:
Uhhh, Do YOU want to stop him and remind him???
They aren't supposed to run into bridge abutments hard enough to kill themselves while making a U turn on an assistance call either. With all the patrol car crashes, it seems NC's finest need a driving refresher course SOON! Maybe we should hold a novice school just for them?
A few comments about law enforcement officers and driving. First of all, it's much more difficult and dangerous to safely respond to an emergency call than driving around cones in a parking lot! The amount of distractions officers have to deal with in a car is overwhelming!!! The officers drive in an enviornment that's often unforgiving (i.e., you make one mistake and there are serious consequences). If one makes a mistake during an autox you're usually cleaning cone marks off the car. While it's easy to be critical of officers' driving, most of us would feel differently if we had to run 10-18 (emergency traffic) on city streets every day...personally, it is a very uncomfortable experience for me. FWIW, I could have just as easily been officer Calleymn in Durham.
When it comes to driving, police officers are just like other people, some are natually great drivers, but all can benefit from additional training. The problem is not with officers, but departments/governments being able to provide quality training on a regular basis. The logistical problems with offering driver training on a large scale is a challenge for the 500+ law enforcement agencies in the state. Finding a decent location, time, money, and good instructors are not easy problems to overcome in providing this training. The City of Charlotte refused to fund a driver training center for their police department for years until they hand enough fatalities and lawsuits to convince them otherwise.
Chuck, since you feel so passionate about the topic, I recommend writing a thoughtful, constructive, and humble letter to City of Durham elected officials requesting that you would be happy to have your property taxes raised a bit to fund such an important program - I'm serious about this. The only thing most elected officials hear is complaints about taxes being too high, so they end up cutting programs or staff doesn't even bother to propose good programs because they likely won't be funded. Change is less likely to happen when the public sits in silence.
Providing driver safety schools and training for police officers is something that I started to get involved in about 10 years ago in my last job becuase there was clearly a gap between the need and a lack of training availability. It is not an easy task to design and coordinate a meaningful driver safety school for law enforcement officers, there are a lot more elements involved than a typical autox school! The schools we've put on for our department in Hillsborough (with a lot of help from many fellow autocrossers) over the years have taken a lot of work and I have access to lots of resources that other communities don't have (i.e., a Mayor & Board that support the training, good sites for training like VIR, a large talent pool of autocrossers who are willing to help run the school as instructors & safety workers, and a basic understanding of the driver safety/risk management side v. the needs of the officers so a solid curriculum could be designed). If it's a challenge, hard work, and stressful for me to do these schools when I have easy access to lots of help, imagine how much harder it is for most other agencies to coordinate a meaningful school.
I don't disagree that there is a need for driver training especially since it's something I've advocated in my job as a town manager, have tried to promote by allowing magazine and newspaper reporters to take the course and write articles about it, as well as having insurance company representatives and elected officials take the school to build support for this type of training. While I may have misinterpretted the comment, I disagree that providing a "novice school" for officers would be helpful since it comes off as demeaning and lacking understanding of what they have to deal with on a daily basis. These folks have incredibly difficult jobs, driving aside, so anything we can do as the public to support and assist them in performing their jobs is also good for the community. The best way to initiate change and see the type of police department and/or government operations that one would like is to share your thoughts, concerns, and ideas with your elected officials who ultimately provide direction to the staff and departments in whatever city or county you may live.
Eric
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