Sportbikers Laugh At Injured Trooper — But TTAC Can Help
As reported on KVAL:
A state trooper rolled his car multiple times while chasing two reckless motorcyclists, one of whom returned to taunt the injured trooper, officials said… As the trooper tried to close in on the fastest biker, he told Pratt (the spokesperson for the Washington State Patrol) that two other bikers cut him off. “Had he not slowed down and slammed on the brakes, he would have hit them,” Pratt said. “At his speed that made him lose control.” The trooper’s vehicle rolled several times, finally landing in a ditch alongside the ramp.
Clearly, it’s time for these “trained police drivers” to quit driving wayyyyy over their personal limits on public roads. To save lives, I am personally willing to fly to Washington State and teach their patrolmen how to avoid the deadly combination of inept braking and inept cornering.
Of course, if the polic
e don’t want to deal with a known bad guy like me — ignoring the fact that Frank Abagnale wrote the book on fraud — they could always send their drivers to any of the well-known driving schools in the area. Failing that, they should make it policy that police don’t aim two-ton weapons they cannot control at highway users who are mostly innocent of any offense more severe than having a Nickelback CD in their stereos. But that, I suppose, would make too much sense.
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The bullet argument is hyperbole, I understand, as it's difficult for even the most expert shot to hit a high-speed target from a platform moving at not-quite-as-high speed. In air combat, the number of hits relative to shots fired is low, and errant rounds aren't likely to do much damage several thousand feet in the air. Speedlaw, it shocks me that anyone who is serious about one's bike hasn't invested in a decent radar detector. A Valentine One should be able to sniff out that radar long before the cop gets a visual, even at 95 mph. Lasers work on only one vehicle at a time, and the places cops can use them are limited. They have to park perpendicular to the road, have to have a good view of the area they're monitoring and need room to pull out and take off after someone, so they settle on the same places over and over again. Bikers and other regular road users should know them by heart. That said, there are still plenty of other ways to get nailed. Maybe it's best to find out who among the local cops likes bikes and get to know them? Or join your local motorcycle cop unit? And as long as police academies stress command presence over simple reasoning, you're going to have troublesome encounters with cops. That's why when given a choice, always try to deal with the older ones. Since most departments don't take any rookies over 35, it's fairly certain they've been around a while. And if anyone thinks Germany is a sportbiker's paradise, think again. I recall a billboard on a road near the Nurburgring with a picture of a few vultures and the caption, "Racers, we're waiting for you."
The training that police get that stresses command presence is also the reason they think it is okay to act like a hostile enemy occupation force, and consequently why the citizenry, on several different levels, is rising up in rebellion. As an example, I've seen the videos of many police/citizen interactions, and it is amazing how often several citizens jump in to record the event, knowing that without an independent record the courts will just accept the officers dishonest and self-serving account. Citizens protecting citizens from the police ... who would have thought such a thing?