BRB Driving Police Cars
Today is a busy day. Bertel and Ed are off somewhere plotting their next round of skullduggery, Murilee is prowling the junkyards of Denver for the elusive 1991 Isuzu Impulse AWD, Jack is laid up in bed with an illness certainly caught from his child’s pre-school, Steve and Sajeev are collaborating on their next hit column and I am commiting a cardinal sin according to the Church of Panther…fraternizing with the enemy.
Ford has invited me to drive the newest Police Interceptor cars today – and while driving a police car has been a fantasy of mine since childhood, I’m sure some of you must be wondering how the newest versions stack up against the beloved Panther-based CVPI. Let me know in the comments. Ford probably won’t let us take the cars off the test course, but if they do, I’ll make sure to get video of me pulling up to my girlfriend’s workplace, sirens blaring, calling her name on the megaphone.
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Long live black steel wheels and center caps. If I ever own a vehicle that has a cop counterpart I'll buy some black steelies for the snow tires.
If you "surprise" your girlfriend at work, you need to rent a full-on cop uniform. I read somewhere that police somewhere in Europe don't like their new Opels because they don't fit in the seats with all the gear on. How no one thought to test that is hard to imagine.
How does it handle with the hundreds of pounds of emergency gear police are required to handle? What about the seats interfering with gun holsters/belts police wear? Can you slide into the vehicle quickly or is it more of struggle because the seats grip you too well? How do vehicles handle neutral drops? How easy is it to screw up the alignment hitting potholes, curbs etc? Is the AC strong enough to handle south texas heat and still be comfortable? How easy do the seats clean up from suspects puking/bleeding/whatever in the back? Is there enough room up front to fit a shotgun easily or will it have to be in the trunk?
People learning German, for example, always have to remember the difference between "schwül" (humid) and "schwul" (gay) – one dropped umlaut and you can end up in a very sticky situation.