One time I had a dead battery and jumper cables at 7-11 and asked a cop (who was the only one around at 4 am) for a jump. He told me that they were not allowed to lift the hoods of their cars for people to give them jumps. I neglected to ask him why because I was so mad about my battery I just walked off.
This is in Maryland. Any ideas?
Never heard of that, and I know a lot of cops. Might be a rule so that an officer isn’t distracted while providing a jump-start and is himself jumped by bad guys. Might be that the police cars’ hoods are specially secured so that bad guys can’t sabotage it while it’s parked unattended. Or… might be a lame excuse by a cop who just didn’t want to help you, for whatever reason.
Around here, cops will call AAA or a towing service to provide a jump start. I’ve never seen a cop provide one, but don’t know if it’s a rule.
Perhaps it’s just that police cars should always be ready to race off to an emergency at any moment, and they can’t be if they’re hooked up to another car providing a jump start.
WAG- all the extra power that the equipment in a police cruiser (laptop, CB, lights, PA, and so on) makes the vehicle a lot more sensitive to the additional drain of jump starting something else.
I’ll ask the roomie when he gets off duty.
In Colorado and here in Nevada I’ve had state troopers give me jump starts. Not sure if that’s the same kind of thing, though.
~Tasha
We were specifically forbidden from using our ambulances to jumpstart things or to BE jumpstarted by anyone else.
Police cars and ambulances have alot of non standard electrical componenets that would be an expensive proposition to replace if damaged by an electrical surge.
Dunno the specs on police cars but our ambulances had IIRC 120 amp alternators and dual batteries. This was to make them capable of powering the monitoring, life support and heating units for Neonatal ICU transfer equipment. Power shortage is not the problem.
Its a departmental policy. If something were to get fried in the dead car while attemting to jump it, that person would expect the PD to pay for it.
We also have a policy that we can’t help someone change a flat tire. Liability and all. Blame the lawyers.
I wonder, would it be possible to disable a police car by tampering with your own car and asking a police officer for a jump?
The hood-raising thing you were told might have been policy, because (if my recollection is not faulty) I’ve had an officer raise the hood and dispense gasoline to fill up a 1-gallon tank for us when we had run out of gas. This must have been from a line connected downstream from the engine-powered mechanical fuel pump.
Sure. You could discharge his battery without any modifications. With modifications (and possibly without), you could cause a power surge big enough to blow fuses.
I blew out a tire halfway across the Bay Bridge (between Kent Island and Annapolis, MD) in a minivan loaded down with newspapers. This was about 3 am. The people manning the bridge got a phone call from someone and they shifted traffic out of my lane, and a highway patrol officer came by to dissuade anyone from plowing into me, and she held a flashlight while I changed the tire. Not the full-service tire change I’d dream about, but it was pretty helpful.
Do you realize how dangerous that could be? Filling a tank from the pressurized fuel system off of a running car? Yikes.
As far as the cop-hood thing. I could see how raising the hood could cause a distraction for the officer, if anything it would limit his visibility for a brief time to allow someone to jump the officer who’s trying to jump you. The electrical issues come into play too. You don’t really know why the other car is dead, could be a short in the battery, if the cop hooks up to that then his car could croak. Then you’re both stuck. Or you could have one of the batteries explode, not good. Lots of problems you normally wouldn’t worry about could happen that could make the situation worse for the officer.
In NY, the cops will flat out refuse to jump you, saying they are not allowed. They will loan you their jumper cables though, which to me is like film without a car. I have jumper cables, I live in the Northeast.
Film without a camera? 
Thank you. Obviously I haven’t had enough coffee yet.
Giving jump starts is not their job.
Emergency Vehicles are just that, Emergency Vehicles.
They have to be ready to go as soon as they get a call.
When “times-a-wastin” there is no time to disconnect cables etc.
Cops are trained for all sorts of situations, true, but jump-starting a vehicle is not necessarily one of them.
Also, any sort of interference from the other party could put the officer at a lot of risk. Say, for instance, he is attaching the cables and you decide to touch him with the other ends?
Anyhow, I can see why it would be frustrating, but I can also see plenty of fairly reasonable reasons why this would be policy.
I used to sell and service two-way radios.
I wish I had a dime for every radio that came in with the main power board blown, because someone jumped their radio equipped car without disconnecting (physically) the radio. Blew those puppies right out, it did.
If the cop did jump you, there would be a very good chance of all his radio equipment going “poof.”
And as I’ve said before, “Poof” IS a highly technical term when it comes to electronics.
I have seen Oklahoma Highway Patrol cars with permanantly installed jumper cables …