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Originally posted by Flash-LB:

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Originally posted by YellowJacket:

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Originally posted by ggile:

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Originally posted by YellowJacket:
Taxpayers own that car, not him. If he breaks it, does he get to fix it?

I guess the safest/smartest thing for the officer to do is go park behind a billboard and stay there his whole shift.

or maybe he should use the car to do his job.

There's a thought. Do the work while he's on the clock and go play on his own time, kind of like what almost everyone else has to do.

Technically one could argue improving his vehicle handling skills, even informally, could be part of the job. Driving is definitely part of the job, but a quick refresher in how the car handles on a slick surface could be argued to be the same.

It's range time, whether formal or informal, just substituting a car for the gun to practice with.

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Originally posted by flashguy:
kidcop, "training" does not always have to have a lesson plan and a checklist, with a monitor. Anything one does to improve his capabilities can be considered "training", and (even if also fun) I think this event qualifies.

flashguy

Actually it pretty much does have to have things like pretests, terminal performance objectives, enabling performance objectives, risk assessments, needs analysis and outcomes based measures/post-tests, in some way, shape or form.

Without at least a skeleton of these, how can you tell if this so-called "training" resulted in the driver's skills improving, remaining the same, or degrading?

When you go to the range, is it with a plan to improve skills, or just blow off rounds for fun? Both are fine, but only one is training.

FWIW, the state driving lesson plan where I'm at is 128 pages long and has 24 outcomes based student performance objectives. Obviously this doesn't include all the ancillary documentation such as the needs assessment, and the all important risk assessment, without which cars on ice covered parking lots or watered-down skid pans are often found wrapped around an unfortunately placed light bollard or nose down in a ditch just off the lot.

I was the manager of an emergency vehicle operator course. It's all fun and games until a car is upside down and on fire.

I don't have a problem with what this guy was up to, but I also can recognize when a cop is clowning around, hell, I've done it. With ABS, AWD and traction control it isn't as easy as it used to be to spin a car.

Sort of related....
Many years ago a kid made black rubber circles in an empty shopping parking lot. Empty except for the now laying down light pole in the lot.

Kid was the son of the Chief of Police.

kidcop, you and I have very different views on "training". You are correct that without what you describe there would be no evaluation or official recognition of the improvement of skills, but the drivers would know and would be more confident on the job. The same is true with going to the range on their own and practicing--the office might not know or acknowledge an improvement, but the cop would. One can improve without there being formal acknowledgment of it.

In this case, only the cops involved on the ice actually know if they were checking out how their vehicle behaved on the ice or if they were just having fun. I'm an optimist and assume that there was at least some expectation of benefit from it.

flashguy

Sheesh, I’d be thinking they were learning how the vehicle handled on ice. Did the same when I was learning how to drive, and later with different vehicles as they all feel different on ice for handling.
Hope he doesn’t lose his job over this.

How else you gonna learn? But,they need to up their game!

Everything you do, every incident you attend, every interview or interrogation you complete, every person you talk to, is training when you're a cop. It may not be 'structured' or valid for CEUs or recognized as 'legitimate', but it's training sure enough.

You learn something every day from every call for service, and if you don't, you should be looking for another career path.

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Originally posted by Pyker:
Everything you do, every incident you attend, every interview or interrogation you complete, every person you talk to, is training when you're a cop. It may not be 'structured' or valid for CEUs or recognized as 'legitimate', but it's training sure enough.

You learn something every day from every call for service, and if you don't, you should be looking for another career path.

When I was a detective I kept a notebook in which I entered notes about every interview and interrogation I did - not the contents of the interaction, but what tactics and techniques worked, or didn't work and how the interaction went in general.

I keep a similar notebook concerning trainings or classes I conduct: how they went, what we covered, how the trainees were engaged, or not.