Sometimes the bikes piss me off!

[desmo2]

In Missouri, Troopers are issued their cars and take them home after their shift. On average we hold onto a car for a year and a half to two years. So, we typically take very good care of them and develop a sort of car/driver relationship. So is the case with me and my current car, an '03 Crown Vic. I'm within 700-800 miles of turning it in for a new one, but I've become quite fond of this particular car in the past year-plus and hate to see it go.

So, the stage is set for tonight's events. I'm patrolling a stretch of 4-lane divided highway in a fairly urban area. Speed limit is 65. Coming in the opposite direction is an early 90's FZR600, passing traffic like nobody's business. I try to get a radar check on him, but he's a much smaller target than surrounding traffic and he's tough to get a read on. As he passes by me I get a quick reading of 85, which corresponds with my observations. Still, not enough for me to feel confident about writing him up, but certainly worth a chase-down and a warning.

So I flip the median and try to catch up. As I accelerate past 100, I realize this guy has really kicked it up a notch, is now probably running in excess of 100, and has a large lead on me. I begin to wonder if he's trying to dust me. With lights and siren blaring, I run up to 130. I come around a bend and know there is an off-ramp ahead. Since he may have taken the ramp, I slow down a bit to catch a glimpse before I pass it up. AAHHH, there he is, at the top of the ramp! Problem is, I'm cooking along pretty good...

I do a little threshold braking, and in a fraction of a second make the decision that I'm bleeding off speed fast enough to make the ramp. I steer over while braking, and...uh oh. Back end is beginning to drift around to the left on me. UH OH, now it's kicking over hard to the right and trying to come around! As I run off onto the right shoulder I see a large boulder laying near the rock cut, directly in my path. This is gonna hurt...

BIFF! I smack the shit out of the damned chunk of Stonehenge with the passenger side of the car. Engine dies, car rolls to a stop on left shoulder. GODDAM IT! I shut off the lights and siren. The FZR rider, who is stopped at the light less than 75 yards ahead of me, looks over his shoulder and sees me there. He's probably wondering where I came from, and why I'm parked on the shoulder. Light turns green and he rolls away.

Now I'm kicking myself in the ass. I should have known better. In that split second, I should have erred on the side of caution and passed the ramp by. It was only a warning! Oh, well, it's just a few hours of pay and a severely bruised ego...

I'm a little saddened at the circumstances that end my last tour with my trusted steed. She served me well. She'll be repaired and will live to serve another day, albiet with another officer and another agency. She's got 49,000 miles on the clock, and we sell them off at 49,500. I'll post pictures of her and the shameful scars I gave her tomorrow....

[Lamron]

Wow, I'm glad you didn't get yourself perished! Shows that there is no substitute for real STEEL in a car. Crown Vics and Caprices are pretty tough cars. My sister got T-boned on the passenger side by a truck while she was driving a Caprice. The center support between the front and back doors was smashed all the way over to the driver's seat. I'm convinced that she would have been killed in a lesser car.

On the subject of radar guns, is it possible to get a good reading on something as small as a motorcycle? Not alot of radar reflective surfaces.

Note to self: I don't think my bike can quite do 130mph, so don't run from Desmo2! He'll sacrifice his favorite car to get me!

[desmo2]

Ok, here are the pics of the damage...







If there is a silver lining to this, it's that my new car was already almost done. Once they put the radios in, it will be ready to go...

[RedRock]

Desmo, your story was very well written, very literary, very visual. Almost like Luke Skywalker in his very own modified X-wing. It was enjoyable, thanks for sharing that with us.

And I had a crown vic on one of my old jobs, the police package with speedometer certified accurate to, oh, I don't remember, 140 mph or so, and it was a sweet car. I never had the guts to get it up past 95! Man, did it ever have some pickup! No problem at all merging onto the interstate highways with that baby. Took the family out in it once (OK with powers that be at that time, when I was on call), and one of the young-uns dropped her baby bottle in the floor and it rolled under the passenger front seat (all unbeknonwst to me), where the bottle fermented and then exploded some days later. Not only did it stink something fierce, but it shorted out my car phone--back then, they were hardwired into the car and were rather large, and the receiver/electronics for it were under the passenger front seat! After that, the powers that be said no more personal use, even when on call. It had the extra antennas and spotlight and was white, but otherwise it wasn't marked. Another one I had on a different job had all the lightbars and markings, and that was no fun to drive, as everyone slowed down when they saw me, and it was very uncomfortable driving the speed limit with it--I had to speed significantly all the time on highways or it was all a bottleneck of cars ahead and behind me, as far as I could be seen.

But, to change the tone a bit, and to my main point (other than congratulating Des on a very well done story, and for surviving): I'm sorry, but......I just don't get it, the ultra-fast motorcycling, AND the need to catch such trash. Sure, such riders might (and often do) crash and hurt/kill other people, but as they clearly don't care at all for their lives (or they wouldn't ride that way), why should decent people (police) care?--why should police put themselves at risk trying to teach or punish such idiots? It's not as if a ticket or even an arrest will really change their future behavior. If those riders want to die, let them, just don't do it on my dime (don't expect me to pay the hospital and funeral bills and survivor's social security benefits) and don't do it where my family has to watch the death or where I have to autopsy their sorry ass. I don't understand. Can a policeman explain it a little better to me? Enquiring minds want to know.

[desmo2]

The obvious answer is it's my job and the public expects me to chase down those who flagrantly and recklessly violate the traffic laws and jeapordize the public's safety. However, I also feel that these folks CAN be reached and their behavior modified. Writing a check for $300-500 and possibly having your license suspended can have a dramatic effect on a young person's concept of consequences. Hopefully they want to avoid another ticket enough to settle them down a bit and perhaps save their lives.

A motorcycle running at 100 mph can do catastrophic damage to any vehicle that pulls into its path. The general public really can't perceive the amount of distance a vehicle traveling at that speed can cover in a second. They are used to the typical flow of traffic and will make decisions accordingly. When they see a motorcycle 1/8 mile away, they feel they have plenty of time to make a turn. Our invincible motorcycle rider, most likely a teenager or someone in the early-20's, isn't yet wise enough to understand that. A nasty crash ensues, and while I don't feel a lot of pity for the idiot who set the stage for the tragedy, I do feel for the poor sap who gets hit and ends up in the hospital or morgue. It's the innocent victims I'm trying to protect when I run balls-to-the-wall to catch one of these knuckleheads.

[Lamron]

desmo2 said:

A nasty crash ensues, and while I don't feel a lot of pity for the idiot who set the stage for the tragedy, I do feel for the poor sap who gets hit and ends up in the hospital or morgue. It's the innocent victims I'm trying to protect when I run balls-to-the-wall to catch one of these knuckleheads.

That's why I'm generally in favor of police being allowed to shoot or run off the road people who run from them. Whatever they were originally wanted for just got upgraded to criminal recklessness in my mind, and a clear and present danger to the public now exists. Its not "just a motorcycle", its 500-1000+ pounds of steel moving at 147 feet per second (100mph). If that hits the side of anything, its going to do severe damage.


Speaking of speed perception, I have a theory why cagers pull out in front of bikers so often. I think its the same reason a squirrel thinks it can safely cross the road. The average squirrel has no concept of anything moving faster than other animals (I.E. dogs, deer, etc). So it DOES see the car, it just files it under "far away/not a threat". So it steps out and is caught totally by suprise when the thing way over there, is now RIGHT HERE.

In traffic, as people are watching 100 different things, when they see the shape of a person (on a motorcycle) they mentally file that under "man/pedestrian/slow" instead of under "vehicle/fast/right-of-way?". They see the biker, but their mind filters out that info as not relevant to their actions right HERE.

So, cager pulls out in front of 100mph bike and somebody dies.

Whenever I ride, I just assume the key is wired directly to my cloaking device. Whenever the engine is running, I'm totally invisible. Thinking of it that way helps keep me from getting killed.

[desmo2]

Damn kids and sportbikes...

Checked one at 111 mph this afternoon, and he ran from me. I think I would have caught him, believe it or not, if it hadn't been for some pea-brained tourist who apparently forgot to renew his rearview mirror subscription...he ran very effective interference for a couple of seconds.

He got lucky today, but those who run only get lucky a couple of times. If they persist, there are only two places they end up...jail or morgue.

Silver lining...
My new car survived without a scratch!

[RedRock]

desmo2 said:

My new car with survived without a scratch!

And yet.......I sense a great disturbance in the force---an innocent---one pure, young, unbent---quaking with fear at the hands of its new and demanding taskmaster, an authority figure relentlessly driving it into the realm of danger toward tremendous forces that twist and shear, crush and burn, forces that transcend mere metal fatigue.

May the Fords be with you, faithful steed.

[Lamron]

Maybe we should form a betting pool on how long it takes Desmo2 to damage his new car.

[desmo2]

Bite your tongue! I've only scuffed two in 9 years. I plan on improving my record, so I should have a bare minimum of 4.5 years before the next one...