When any command staff get together and start discussing the equipment that needs to be maintained by their officers or deputies, the list will inevitably include their sidearm, long guns, electronic control devices, radios, and more. What sometimes doesn’t get discussed but is easily the most used piece of equipment an officer has is the patrol vehicle. When patrol vehicles are brought up in the conversation, fuel usage and visibility are often more talked about than maintenance. Oddly, regular and proper maintenance is perhaps the one thing that has the greatest impact on both fuel usage and service life of any patrol vehicle.
In this 2020 edition of the Officer Media Group Vehicles & Fleet Supplement, we take a look at those items along with a few other topics that might not come to the top of the list during such discussions. One of the more entertaining topics we’re going to look at is alternative vehicles in law enforcement. There are far more than sedans and SUVs in use for law enforcement—think airboats, snowmobiles, and ATVs. Here, we tell the tale of two agencies set in very different environments.
Mounting equipment inside of any patrol or special use vehicle can be a challenge. Between the power harness (electrical) and the airbags, etc., how and where you mount laptops, rifles, emergency kits and more can be a challenge, not only for space but for safety. Once all of that equipment is mounted, the vehicle does need to be regularly maintained so we reached out to a fleet maintenance manager to ask him: what are the five things you wish an officer would tell you when dropping off their patrol vehicle for maintenance? His answers and justifications are included herein.
Finally, while we’ve looked at the value of armored personnel carriers (APCs) in the past (see our 2019 Vehicles & Fleet Supplement), we didn’t discuss customizing them to agency/emergency team need. We spoke with the Commander of Calvert County (Maryland) Special Operations Division and got a few pointers on the how and why of some APC customizations.
Read on and stay safe!
