With 340 hp, these cars are going to be pretty hard to outrun. According to this story in the Virginian Pilot today, the Virginia State troopers are being issued the 5.7 liter, V-8 version of the Dodge Charger. That’s a whole lot of horsepower.
Of course, if you got the SRT-V8, with 425 hp, they probably couldn’t catch you 
Umm – midnight blue, please 
Oh… and I am NOT denying that the issues you brought up are problems. I know they are.
Posted by Scott | Wednesday, April 4, 2007, 11:18 amI think we should hire police officers as traffic cops only. Don’t pay them a salary and pay them a commission off of every ticket they write. I bet we would see an increase in “enforcement”.
This was posted tongue in cheek…
Posted by Grumpy | Wednesday, April 4, 2007, 11:24 amScott-
I’d like to see the police pull over more folks when they witness dumbassery (my all purpose term, it seems) on the road. And the folks who engage in that behavior are often not alert enough to notice the cruiser a few lengths back. I can’t tell you how many times I saw someone do something unsafe and stupid in the plain view of a cop who didn’t seem to want to be bothered about it.
I know that these types of violations are hard to prove – it’s essentially the cop’s word against the motorists (that said, I think we all know how that record stacks up over time). But really, I don’t care if tickets are given or not – I just want people to be told that what they’re doing isn’t safe. I suspect that that will be sufficient for most.
Posted by MB | Wednesday, April 4, 2007, 5:31 pmWhat you are asking for is not unreasonable. You are asking for more enforcement.
And now for the standard issue song and dance. Manpower.
I know for a fact in Portsmouth, other cities I don’t know, but we don’t have time for a lot of traffic enforcement options. We litterally go call to call to call.
But you did answer my question.
Regarding the “plain view” issue. That may be true. I am not going to sit here and tell you that every cop out there is a ball of fire for enforcement. BUT… Is he/she on the way to a Domestic call? A robbery? Burglary in progress? We don’t run lights and sirens to those. We GO GO GO but not lights and sirens. We don’t want to “spook” someone into doing something they ordinarily wouldn’t by blaring up to the house with lights and sirens going. So yes, he may have witnessed it, but may be otherwise occupied and unable to do anything. Just a thought.
Now… if you see that same cop pull off and into a 7-11 (they have replaced Dunkin’ Donuts for those that were getting ready to say something), then you may have grounds for a discussion with the officers supervisor. However, he may also have been cancelled off the call.
It can be a rather tangled web sometimes.
Thanks for entertaining my questions…
Posted by Scott | Wednesday, April 4, 2007, 8:46 pm