Police Academy: Week 4
Week 3 of police academy was all about traffic law. It was incredibly boring, but Officer Elledge made it as interesting and as fun as possible. Luckily, he had plenty of great stories to tell to break up the 2,200 PowerPoint slides.
Week 4:
We had Monday off for Memorial Day (my first paid holiday). Michelle and I went to Hiawassee on Saturday to visit with family, and swim and canoe in the lake. Tuesday was taken up completely in the classroom. We talked about driving emergency vehicles. Wednesday was the most fun I've had yet. We all hopped in the Emergency Vehicle Operation Course (EVOC) cars and drove to the course that we set up last week. The EVOC cars are old police cars that were in accidents and weren't worth fixing, or just older cars with a lot of miles on them. The department tries to replace the cars every 150,000 miles or so since they are driven 24/7.
While half of the class practiced on the precision driving course, the other half practiced on the skid pad. The driving course (shown on the left) was a little difficult for me considering that I don't have power steering in my truck. It took me a little while to get used to the car, but once I did I was fine. If you click on the picture you can see it in more detail. Start in the upper right hand corner and follow it through. Note the areas that are driven backwards. (By the way, all of the diagrams are drawn to scale.) We weren't allowed to hit any cones, and we had to finish between 2 minutes 45 seconds and 3 minutes 15 seconds. The Major was there filming again (just like he was during the OC test). On the first long reverse I floored it and peeled out, it should make for a good video clip for graduation night.
The skid pad was probably the most fun. There was a huge parking lot with water canons around it to soak it down. We had ten practice runs with the instructor and two other recruits in the back. The cars used on the skid pad were altered so that the instructor, riding shotgun, could press a button to lock down the brakes. We would drive at 35 MPH towards a set of cones, at that point the instructor would tell us which way to go around the obstacle. When we drove around the obstacle, the brakes would lock down sending us into a tail spin. Our goal was to come out of the spin before we did a 360, drive across the rest of the skid pad and park in a designated area to show that we had full control of the car. I only lost control once during my ten practice runs.
Thursday was taken up completely by the controlled braking maneuver. It was by far the most difficult of the three exercises. Once we reached 35 MPH we would swerve around an obstacle. In the middle of the swerve the light would turn red, and we would hit the brakes as hard as possible in order to keep control of the car and park it on the other side of the obstacle. When one of the instructors demonstrated it for us, one of the other recruits said, "As long as I'm riding with Smith I'll be safe." That made me feel good, especially since they all know about my four accidents. Now that I am a certified emergency vehicle operator, I have proof that I'm a good driver.
One of the recruits was unable to successfully complete the braking maneuver, and another recruit injured his lower back in an unrelated event, so we're down to 12 now. I think we started with 20. The two that left this week will more than likely be given another chance in January when the next academy starts.