Pedal Cars

PUBLISH-2

I have a grainy black and white photo of me when I was about five. I’m driving a pedal car made to look like a tow truck. I vividly remember that truck; it might even be the cause of my life-long affection for trucks of all sorts. I remember it being the best, fastest, coolest thing I owned, especially after my dad put blue lights on it for headlights. I was the envy of all the other 5-year-old, non-pedal-car owners on the block.

But what does that have to do with anything?

A fun kid’s pedal car led to wanting things like “cool” 1980 Dodge Aspen
police cars? Was there even such a thing as a cool Aspen police car?

Decades passed and I became a cop. I remember just as vividly fighting for a new beat car to be assigned to my beat when they arrived, since I wanted the coolest car. I remember whining when I had to take out the piece of garbage pool cars with hundreds of thousands of miles on them, complete with torn seats, pitted windshields and that marvelous transient smell we all love so much. I pouted at times, tossed my sucker in the dirt, and ruined many perfectly good days at work since I wanted the “cool” cars and hated getting the trash. But we were a big agency, money was often tight, I often didn’t work as a primary beat officer, so found myself riding pool cars a lot. And then it hit me.

I was a cop to fight crime and help the poor and downtrodden and all that. I wasn’t a cop to be stylin’ in my ride, or to waste my time and the time of people around me whining about having to drive a beater as my cop car. Citizens didn’t care (they just saw a police car), my beat partners didn’t care (they laughed and made fun since they got a cool new car sometimes, which is good, because I laughed and made fun when I got a cool new car), and all it did was screw up my day.

So, in spite of my youngish age — and mostly because of a quiet word from a very respected senior officer — I turned a new leaf. One day while I was tossing my equipment bag disgustedly into the trunk of a stink-bomb, the old cop simply said, “You know, if you bring in your own Windex and roll of paper towels, and get some ‘smell-good’ for the back seat, those pool cars ain’t that bad.”

And, he was right. From exactly the next day on, 10 minutes after lineup, I had clean windows, a clean steering wheel, floors vacuumed out, a shot of smell-good for the rear floor and I went to work. No whining, no pouting … and suddenly I spent my days enjoying police work again. I was concentrating on what I should have been concentrating on, not the vagaries of the equipment dance. Some days you’re on top, some days not. Some days you get the “good” radios, some days you go out without one — at least in those days.

What’d I learn? I learned to concentrate on doing good police work, regardless of the state of the equipment I had little control over. I also learned to take care of what was issued to me, and what I bought with my hard earned bucks. It pays you back. I once got into a “new” pool car that had recently been taken from the primary beat officer and replaced with a new car. It was an early 1980s Crown Vic with about 135,000 miles on it — but it looked and ran like new. I also knew the officer who had driven the car for most of those miles. He was always well kept; leather shined, squared away and made sure his beat car was the same way. Now, I was the one reaping the benefits. It changed the way I did business. Some cops look at you weird if you take the time to polish your gear, or wash your beat car before leaving the station. Let ’em look.

Concentrate on being a good cop. Make the most of the equipment you have, and don’t waste time whining if you can’t change something. Work toward improving your agency’s equipment if you can. Encourage them to upgrade as budgets can afford it, but until then, make do with what you have — and push on.