The sub shop where I eat is usually filled with local police officers. I’ve noticed for quite some time now that they always leave their cars turned on. I just left there and there were 3 empty police cars running and with their lights on. 4 officers were inside eating, and not in any kind of rush. What a waste of gas! Is this common everywhere?
Yeah. I’ve noticed it too. Cops always stop at a local convenience store to shoot the shit during their breaks. The cars are almost always running.
Just a WAG, but maybe it’s due to all the electronics in their cars. Not just the radios, but half the cop cars I’ve seen in the last few years have computers, dashboard cams, etc. It might even be policy that they don’t get switched off over the course of a work shift.
Common here in Québec, as well. Very annoying. Especially since they’re in charge of enforcing the 3-minute-idle rule on other motorists.
I’ve seen them with the hoods popped slightly open to help them stay cool while idling. Just to the first “notch” on the hood release so they could, theoretically, drive off if needed.
Yeah I keep it running because the computer terminal we use will shut down or not keep the information if I shut it off…
On a call i always leave the lights on because I work at night and if I need to call an emergency its easier for your backup to find the car if the lights are on…
But surely the car must get turned off at some point. It doesn’t run 24/7, does it? If the reason that police officers, continent-wide, leave their cars on is loss of information access, perhaps there is a tech or power solution? It just seems like such an unnecessary waste of gas and taxpayer money.
There are plenty of reasons why this may be necessary. I (very briefly) used to work as a dispatcher, here are a few reasons I could guess:
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The computer system also is a bit of a timecard system in addition to the other features. The police officers have to set their ‘status’ (e.g. on break, foot patrol, whatever) in the system for tracking purposes. They also set a location, for safety and oversight reasons. It’s possible the system isn’t designed to track cars that are not powered.
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Notifications of trips and data may not persist between sessions (officers are issued all kinds of alerts about things to check out, ‘be on the lookout’ alerts, missing children reports, that sort of thing – you would not believe the amount, actually… dozens if not hundreds a day).
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New information may not be available while the station is off (if it’s some sort of a ‘push’ system).
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Dashcams or other recording devices may be required by law to be constantly in operation while the officer is working
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Leaving the car running may increase response rate to emergency calls
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GPS recording the location of the vehicle may not be running and may be required
Now, could a few of these possibly be overcome with technology? Sure. But are you going to approve $40,000 for a new citywide police officer computer system to save a few bucks on gas? The individual cities sure aren’t designing these systems – they’re being provided by vendors. The city government may balk at a more expensive system with frills, or they may even be farming out the project to the lowest bidder.
It would have to be a pretty robust electrical system.
If i’m doing my math right,
A standard 45 amp hour car battery will be run down by a 200 watt load in about 2.7 hours.
200 V * A * X = 12V * 45AH
X= 2.7H
200 watts is a wild guess at how much the electronics in a cop car use.
Also, car batteries don’t take well to being run down. Tap out a standard battery 2-3 times and it’ll die on you.
(I assume cop cars also use deep cycle batteries for this reason). Those deep cell batteries aint cheap, they’re something like 200$/ea for a good one.
I suppose you could do the math on battery replacement cost vs Gas. But then you have to take into account the possibility that a cop wouldn’t be able to start their car and respond to a call.
And I suppose one could simply run the equipment on battery power for a reasonable time, then restart the engine when appropriate before the battery is depleted. I can even imagine a space-age gadget that would go beep-beep to warn that the battery is getting a bit low, etc.
Truckers used to let their engines run all night at truck stops in cold weather, so they wouldn’t freeze when sleeping in the cab. It was unavoidable, cost of doing business, etc. Then somebody developed a cabin heater that runs on diesel, and all of a sudden it became possible to turn off the engine, reduce pollution and save money.
I’m aware that few people care about the pollution part, but the monetary aspect should be getting some attention with the rising cost of fuel.
According to this story in the Globe & Mail, police cars spend about 85% of their engine time idling, and an inventor is (was?) working on a way to lower that.
This might be a dumb question, but since cops keep their cars running all the time does that mean they have another set of keys they carry on them? :o
They have a button they can press that lets them remove the key without it shutting off the engine, or at least the cars I’ve seen do it that way…
I would guess that the amount of money saved by shutting off the cars is just too small to worry about compared to the rest of the department’s budget. Cars don’t burn much gas at idle. The difference probably wouldn’t be more than a few dollars per day per car.
I’ve seen a cop leave his car running in Glasgow, in Miami and in Philadelphia.
I’ve seen a cop in Spain get yelled at by his partner to “switch the damn car off or I am taking over the keys!” Spanish cop cars aren’t supposed to have the engine running when they’re stopped, whether they’ve got the electronics running or not.
I also find it very strange when I’m in a factory and I see forklifts left alone with their engines running. Most of the factories where I’ve worked considered that a fireable offense on grounds of being a safety risk.
We generally leave our ambulances running all the time. We have radios, computers, and medical equipment that needs to be powered. We also need to keep the patient compartment climate controlled. It can get really cold or really hot fairly quickly and we don’t want to make our patient’s uncomfortable. Our medications and some other supplied need to be climate controlled as well.
Also, we don’t have stations. I spend my entire shift in the ambulance and I’m not doing that without heat or air conditioning!
We also have kill switches, so I can leave it running at take the keys with me.
St. Urho
Paramedic
Don’t assume anything. Our maintenance guy is constantly complaining that they buy cheap batteries and he needs to replace them all the time. Don’t underestimate a government’s ability to take the short term view.
Yes.
Two main reasons: in the winter it doesn’t take much for the battery to die. They are constantly added a heavier load to the battery. In the summer time wearing a vest is fucking hot and getting into an air conditioned car is a relief. Also our computer system is supposed to not lose the information when you shut the car down. But in some of the cars it does anyway. Its about a ten minute proceedure to get everything up and running. Its not a problem to do it once in the beginning of a shift. But to do it everytime you get back in the car? And what if you are getting back in to go to a call? All the important information you need is going to be on the computer.
Behold! It doesn’t go beep-beep, because honestly, there’s probably nobody there to hear it. When voltage drops to a critical level, it sends a signal to a commercial remote car starter that restarts the engine. After the batteries are recharged, it kills the engine again.
Pretty cool, no? It doesn’t address a reasonable objection that Loach has. That of air conditioning in the summer. But it doesn’t force the LEO to use it when it’s 90° out. They can still leave their vehicle running if they want to. It just gives them the opportunity to use it when it makes sense to.
Last week we just got digital recorders to replace our cassette tapes for taking official statements. I don’t expect anything new to be used anytime soon
Yeah, but cassette tapes are cheap. Digital is cheaper, once it’s paid for, but gas is fuckin’ expensive.
Full disclosure. I sell Havis equipment. I’m not trying to sell you or anyone else IdleRight units through my company. Havis is a private company, and I am not an owner.
That said, I’m amazed at the lack of interest I’ve seen in this product. It saves gas (which we both know is a considerable expense to a department) and it reduces carbon footprint. Disregarding the labor cost of installation, which is pretty much a fixed expense anyway, you can pick up an IdleRight and the lower end of supported remote starters (which is fine, because you don’t even want your patrol crew to have the actual remote or any of the features) for under $200 per vehicle.
That’s 50 gallons of gas. It’s a no-brainer. I understand your perspective, but the cost savings of analogue to digital recording equipment is offset by the cost of entry. You can real world test gas usage of an IdleRight with a $200 investment.
I apologize for this sounding like a sales pitch, which it pretty much is, but I’m not trying to sell the product to anyone reading this. I hope this is not viewed as spamming. It’s only remotely possible that anyone who reads this will wind up buying anything from me. I just think it’s a cool piece of equipment that benefits the seller, the buyer and the environment.
This practice started loooong before the cars were equipped with high tech electronics. The intent was that if an officer was on break he could leave the vehicle but if he got an emergency call he could just hop in the car and drive away. No time wasted starting the car but more importantly no risk of NOT being able to start the car, which could cause a serious situation if he was the nearest cop to an incident and couldn’t get there in time to prevent a tragedy.