Crystal Pistol
December 1st, 2005, 02:15
Several years ago, actually :chug: ... it was in the mid '80s (I was driving my little '82 GranFury police car, I can date some memories by what car I had) and I was working my favorite shift ... midnight. :type:
Before I go further. let me explain that. Midnights come around to me about every 10 - 13 weeks depending on how many men we have currently assigned. We are an interstate county, so we have to have a man out there 24 hours. We have a 7 day stretch that starts Thursday night at 10pm and ends the following Thursday at 6am, then that man is off until he comes back on the following Tuesday. The deal is, don't ask for leave on midnights, we won't mess with your 4 days off afterwards. Usually, midnight shift starts after two days off, so in all it's like 13 days of no seargents or 1st Seargents or Lt.s messing with you. Your not alone, there are usually a couple deputies working the county and the two small cities each have a couple men working. The biggest challenge is getting adequate sleep, I have tried everything, currently I sleep from when I get in at 6am to about 1pm, get up, then lay back down from 7pm-9pm before going back out, it works better than some other methods I have tried. Hence, 13 days no hassle, happens 4 times a year, no bright daylight stressing the eyes, and no errands for HQ, etc ... just me and the boss which is ... me. Night skies are so beautiful at times, full moons with a smithering of clouds, etc ... Anyway, I like midnights the way we do them. The weardest things happen on midnight too. :ninja:
Back to my story. I'm sitting there :fishing: on the entrance ramp (listening to WABC out of NY on the AM likely as not back then, before XM) just pasing time, traffic is light then, it was coming up on spring break time for many colleges. It's about 2, maybe 3 am, and the limit then was 55 (y'all remember them days?). I had the current radar, probably a KR-11 and had it on hold (it's on, but not transmitting). :wicked:
Suddenly, a car goes by ... fast, I immediately estimate it must be doing 80+, and I wait until it gets farther away, and is pulling away more straight as I don't want to release the hold too soon, I want to get as close to true speed as I can and that is by minimizing the cosine angle effect which is greatest when the target is closest to me. I want as near a "straight shot" at the rear of the car as I can get, to get the most of the vehicles true speed. I'm about to push the hold release button to check it's speed, when ... a second car goes by also fast, every bit as fast as the first one. So I wait again (waiting because I know that there are many people, cars and trucks using radar detectors, yes, I'm afraid so, even here in the Old Dominion itself) . :omg:
Well, this happens until 9 cars have passed, each "flying low", each easily in the '80s, and I say "enough of this sh*t, I'm going to pace a couple on the tail end and snag them" ... so I take off and low and behold, there ain't no more, just these 9 cars ahead. I accelerate as the Thermoquad feeds that 318 (yeah, I said 318, but it wasn't a big car either) Plymouth and I set up on the two rear cars as we go down a hill and they stretch out across the footlog after the left handed sweeper, and it being a valley of sorts, I can see that after I level off at 85, all 9 cars are still pulling away from me. I hold it steady at 85 though, for a good 3/4 mile and then I hit the gas to catch back up and hit the red bubblegum machine up top. The rear cars both slow, and I pull up beside the rear one and hit my dome lamp and motion it over, and accelerate to get #2. :terminator:
Now, I was going to settle for these two, really ... I was.But the CB suddenly comes alive as the one I just motioned over and told someone that a cop wanted them to stop and so this other voice said to come on around the next curve (it was a blind right hander up the hill from the footlog) and they would all wait together. So I pick up the mic and said that would be OK. :yes: We came around the curve to a sea of brakelights as all 9 cars pulled over in a nice, straight line on the right shoulder. :rofl:
I grabbed a big binder clip and after letting dispatch know what was happening and my location, and the rear couple car's tags, ... I walked up and one by one, "introduced" myself and obtained drivers license and registrations from all 9 drivers, as well as setting 4 radar detectors out (I just set the detectors down beside the cars from where they came) to await my return trip to my car after having clipped the license and regs each in order in that binder clip. As I recall, I wrote 13 tickets, took near 1-1/2 hour to do it all, write the tickets, check detectors, return everything and get signatures, and until they were all ready to go. :bye:
Then I spent another 30 minutes making notes on my copies of each summons. :cool:
That was a week's work. None were suspended though, they were all Tulane University students on the way home in convoy to NJ for spring break and the lead car was a gold Pontiac Trans Am driven by a dark haired beauty with very Italian looking features, long legs, and very short shorts. :love: I can't tell you anything about the others except the rear one was a blue Olds Cutlass, but I'll never forget that "Trans Am". :unibrow: (Yeah, she was one of the radar detector carrying drivers, guess it went with the "point position", since I had never used the radar, none of them ever thought to take the detectors down, or I just got the 4 that didn't think to do so??? ... Oh well, one must "make hay while the sun shines" ) :rofl:
Glad I didn't get no wrecks dispatched out then. :)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Make Courtesy Your "Code of the Road" ......
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid37/p8d4ee6ee2c5a5501dbf453db7c250ab5/fd1adeed.jpg
...... and whatever you do ... Have a Safe Trip! :bye: :omg:
Before I go further. let me explain that. Midnights come around to me about every 10 - 13 weeks depending on how many men we have currently assigned. We are an interstate county, so we have to have a man out there 24 hours. We have a 7 day stretch that starts Thursday night at 10pm and ends the following Thursday at 6am, then that man is off until he comes back on the following Tuesday. The deal is, don't ask for leave on midnights, we won't mess with your 4 days off afterwards. Usually, midnight shift starts after two days off, so in all it's like 13 days of no seargents or 1st Seargents or Lt.s messing with you. Your not alone, there are usually a couple deputies working the county and the two small cities each have a couple men working. The biggest challenge is getting adequate sleep, I have tried everything, currently I sleep from when I get in at 6am to about 1pm, get up, then lay back down from 7pm-9pm before going back out, it works better than some other methods I have tried. Hence, 13 days no hassle, happens 4 times a year, no bright daylight stressing the eyes, and no errands for HQ, etc ... just me and the boss which is ... me. Night skies are so beautiful at times, full moons with a smithering of clouds, etc ... Anyway, I like midnights the way we do them. The weardest things happen on midnight too. :ninja:
Back to my story. I'm sitting there :fishing: on the entrance ramp (listening to WABC out of NY on the AM likely as not back then, before XM) just pasing time, traffic is light then, it was coming up on spring break time for many colleges. It's about 2, maybe 3 am, and the limit then was 55 (y'all remember them days?). I had the current radar, probably a KR-11 and had it on hold (it's on, but not transmitting). :wicked:
Suddenly, a car goes by ... fast, I immediately estimate it must be doing 80+, and I wait until it gets farther away, and is pulling away more straight as I don't want to release the hold too soon, I want to get as close to true speed as I can and that is by minimizing the cosine angle effect which is greatest when the target is closest to me. I want as near a "straight shot" at the rear of the car as I can get, to get the most of the vehicles true speed. I'm about to push the hold release button to check it's speed, when ... a second car goes by also fast, every bit as fast as the first one. So I wait again (waiting because I know that there are many people, cars and trucks using radar detectors, yes, I'm afraid so, even here in the Old Dominion itself) . :omg:
Well, this happens until 9 cars have passed, each "flying low", each easily in the '80s, and I say "enough of this sh*t, I'm going to pace a couple on the tail end and snag them" ... so I take off and low and behold, there ain't no more, just these 9 cars ahead. I accelerate as the Thermoquad feeds that 318 (yeah, I said 318, but it wasn't a big car either) Plymouth and I set up on the two rear cars as we go down a hill and they stretch out across the footlog after the left handed sweeper, and it being a valley of sorts, I can see that after I level off at 85, all 9 cars are still pulling away from me. I hold it steady at 85 though, for a good 3/4 mile and then I hit the gas to catch back up and hit the red bubblegum machine up top. The rear cars both slow, and I pull up beside the rear one and hit my dome lamp and motion it over, and accelerate to get #2. :terminator:
Now, I was going to settle for these two, really ... I was.But the CB suddenly comes alive as the one I just motioned over and told someone that a cop wanted them to stop and so this other voice said to come on around the next curve (it was a blind right hander up the hill from the footlog) and they would all wait together. So I pick up the mic and said that would be OK. :yes: We came around the curve to a sea of brakelights as all 9 cars pulled over in a nice, straight line on the right shoulder. :rofl:
I grabbed a big binder clip and after letting dispatch know what was happening and my location, and the rear couple car's tags, ... I walked up and one by one, "introduced" myself and obtained drivers license and registrations from all 9 drivers, as well as setting 4 radar detectors out (I just set the detectors down beside the cars from where they came) to await my return trip to my car after having clipped the license and regs each in order in that binder clip. As I recall, I wrote 13 tickets, took near 1-1/2 hour to do it all, write the tickets, check detectors, return everything and get signatures, and until they were all ready to go. :bye:
Then I spent another 30 minutes making notes on my copies of each summons. :cool:
That was a week's work. None were suspended though, they were all Tulane University students on the way home in convoy to NJ for spring break and the lead car was a gold Pontiac Trans Am driven by a dark haired beauty with very Italian looking features, long legs, and very short shorts. :love: I can't tell you anything about the others except the rear one was a blue Olds Cutlass, but I'll never forget that "Trans Am". :unibrow: (Yeah, she was one of the radar detector carrying drivers, guess it went with the "point position", since I had never used the radar, none of them ever thought to take the detectors down, or I just got the 4 that didn't think to do so??? ... Oh well, one must "make hay while the sun shines" ) :rofl:
Glad I didn't get no wrecks dispatched out then. :)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Make Courtesy Your "Code of the Road" ......
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid37/p8d4ee6ee2c5a5501dbf453db7c250ab5/fd1adeed.jpg
...... and whatever you do ... Have a Safe Trip! :bye: :omg: