Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. CARS AND CRASHES sURvIvING IN YOUR MOBIlE OFFICE. sUZI HUNTINGTON HYbrid Or HigH COst? Y I can’t help but snicker when I see this — a Toyota Prius patrol car. Maybe patrolling a college campus is an ideal use for this car, but I don’t think hybrids have a place in the rough and tumble world of standard patrol work. Photo courtesy of Andy McMurray ou may recall I just wrote about what has to be the most well thought out and coolest looking police car to be introduced in a gazillion years, the Carbon Motors E7 (Nov/Dec 2009). Now, true to female persuasion, I’m going to go in the exact opposite direction. Looking at the E7 got me thinking about vehicles used in all aspects of police work — not just patrol. I started wondering what place, if any, hybrid cars have in a police fleet. After much research and review of what’s available, I’m unconvinced hybrid technology is good enough for the rigors of patrol work, but that’s not to say agencies can’t use them in other areas. There have been numerous agencies who’ve made the leap into the hybrid market and there’s a wide cross section of hybrids to choose from. I’ve seen the Toyota Prius, Camry and Highlander, along with the Chevy Tahoe and Ford Escape used as “marked” patrol cars. I still snicker when I think of a Prius as a police car, it congers up images of The Jetson’s cartoon, not of Captain America or anything close to a hero. But it ain’t all about image now, is it? vehicles front-end crashes, even minor ones, can spell death to the car. This is because the majority of them are front wheel drive. Some of them have variable-type transmissions which sounds a little like all-wheel drive, but I think you’ll still have serious issues with front-end collisions. FulFilling a need ost of you are caught in the throws of the incredible shrinking budget. Administrators must continually figure ways to save big bucks, and trust me gas is a huge expense for police agencies. A good place to start making considerable gas savings is in detective units, special units like Recruiting, Traffic or DARE and the administrators themselves. I could never understand why the top brass of my former agency all have full-sized, gas-hog Crown Vic’s assigned to use 24 hours a day. Many of the captains and lieutenants have them too. Do they need them? Absolutely not, it’s a wasteful perk. Most detective units are reactive; following up crime cases, re-interviewing victims and witnesses, presenting cases to the city or district attorney or trolling for the suspect. Detectives even get called out to many crimes scenes, but they don’t need a standard-issue police car. In fact, cars that don’t scream “Police” allow detectives to blend in better and go undetected. What a perfect test ground to see how well hybrids would hold up to the abuse cops (detectives) inflict on cars. M For Patrol? Hybrid cars have higher initial costs per vehicle than their standard counterparts; you’re paying a premium for the 30 technology. None of the hybrid models available from Chevy, Ford, Chrysler or Toyota come with upgraded suspensions to handle to common types of police driving, i.e. pursuits, constant hard accelerations and braking. This translates to either higher maintenance costs to fix a hybrid not built for the abuse or spending extra money to beef up the suspension. The Toyota Highlander specifically says on their Web site the vehicle is not intended for off-road use. What? Why call it an SuV then? Does SuV now mean Sissy utility Vehicle? I don’t get it. What about all that crap patrol cars have in and on them — emergency lights, sirens, push bumpers, mobile computers, video cameras, shotgun and rifle racks, police radios and prisoner cages to name just a few? All those goodies are already out there and fitted for standard cop cars (hint: it’s why they’re so big), but not for the hybrids. Now you’re looking at having to modify or make from scratch ways to put all this stuff into the hybrid, which means more money just to get them into the field. A disturbing trend in cop car crashes is most of them are front-end impact. On standard police cars this generally isn’t a big problem and is a fairly easy repair job. For most of the hybrid Performance? In 0-60 mph testing I have to say the Prius whirs up along side the Crown Vic, but that’s about the only good thing I can say about it. Top speed for a Prius is just a hair over 100 — and I don’t think that speed was obtained from one equipped as a cop car (think light bar, and spot lights as interfering with the aerodynamics). Top speeds from the commonly seen police cars are 130-150 mph. I wouldn’t want to have to tell dispatch I’d just been dusted by granny in her 1987 Buick Skylark. Handling in aggressive driving is another concern and I don’t think there’s enough hard data on this issue yet. I’d like to see some long term police driving testing of these vehicles. The consensus here — hybrid cars definitely have their place in police work, just not in a patrol platform. Yes, there are agencies who have begun to implement them as patrol vehicles, but I’m waiting to see what the end user — you — has to say about them in the next couple of years. I’d love to be proven wrong. * WWW.AMERICANCOPMAGAZINE.COM • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010