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German Police Stop Man With Mobile Office In Car
PolygamousRanchKid writes "Forget texting while driving. German police say they nabbed a driver who had wired his Ford station wagon with an entire mobile office. Saarland state police said Friday the 35-year-old man was pulled over for doing 130 kph (80 mph) in a 100 kph zone while passing a truck Monday. Built on a wooden frame on his passenger seat they found a laptop on a docking station tilted for easy driver access, a printer, router, wireless internet stick, WLAN antenna, and an inverter to power it all."
I've driven some long trips with a similar passenger-seat setup (minus the printer), but of course for use only while stopped. Since the police in this case had no evidence that the rig was being used while driving, the driver was ticketed only for speeding and for having unsecured items. Really, it seems like something that Skymall should offer in neater form; now I regret not picking up a surplus police cruiser computer when they were in stock at the local Goodwill.
Well, at least it wasn't "Man with mobile office in phone, stopped by police"
Are the editors deliberately trying to drive Slashdot into the brink of nothingness? The amount of non stories, flame/click-bait and one sided "articles" is staggering. I wish there was an alternative site with the quality of comments Slashdot do have at times, to at least keep editors on their toes.
I didn't realize Germany had speed limits on its highways.
#DeleteChrome
I'm sure people get stopped regularly with 50" flatscreen TV's on the passenger seat, as part of regular traffic checks, speeding etc. But as the article states:
Since there was no evidence he used the office while moving, (..)
He was driving on a Bundesstraße or Landstraße, where a speed limit applies (in this case, 100km/h).
The funny thing is this "Mobile Office" resembles a lot of US Police squad cars, especially those in larger cities.
Built in computers with direct access to multiple databases, GPS tracking of the car as well as nearby police cars.
automated license plate readers, more radios than you can count, video cameras, and printers for your citation.
The sad part is the cops drive while reading from and typing on these computers.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
There are numerous options for dash-mounting or floorboard-mounting tablets and laptops available on Ebay and other internet sites and there are plenty of legitimate reasons for doing so. Many auto-insurance adjusters operate "mobile claims" vehicles that are equiped with the ability to print and prccess claims right at the spot of the accident. Their are many jobs such as home health care providers where employees spend more time in a vehicle or away from an actual office space. The ability to scan and send medical documents instead of hand delivering them could be a huge time saver. Maybe even a life saver.
Is this really so uncommon in Germany that it warrants a news story?
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Yeah but cops get special training to do so in a safe and (&$&$/&)(/" Carrier Lost
Perhaps "one less slashdotter polluting the roads"?
Ezekiel 23:20
You'll see "Police Stop Man With Mobile Workshop in Van", although I tend not to actually leave stuff I'm working on sitting on the front seats.
Fiddling with this stuff while driving sounds a bit dangerous, but who here hasn't used Google Maps on their laptop to work out where they are?
The sad part is the cops drive while reading from and typing on these computers.
They work in pairs, don't they? They probably aren't driving both at the same time.
Ezekiel 23:20
At least he wasn't using this while driving.
Because it's not like this is even a fractional amount of the setup most police squad cars have (at least here in the US):
* Multiple radios, usually 2-3 from what I've seen (emergency, local police dispatch, national or state frequencies, etc.)
* A laptop on a mount
* A printer
* A shotgun
* A radar gun
* spot lights
* fancy data uplinks
What exactly would the problem be with anyone having these things in their car?
Keep in mind that "all of the above", plus what the guy in Germany had, is common fare for many US truckers (well, except the shotgun, which I believe is now illegal for a trucker to have in his cab).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I don't know about you, but I've rarely seen a pair of officers in most cars unless we're talking about somewhere like Oakland, CA.
In the Dodge Charger squad cars, there simply isn't enough room for the electronics and a passenger - not unless the passenger is under 6' and 150lb at least. Not only do the newer cars afford barely any space, but the equipment takes up a lot. (This was much less a problem in a Vic.)
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
You watch too much TV. Its hard to have dialog in the show unless there are partners.
Seriously, the only places you see two officer cars are in areas where crime is so rampant that cops are afraid
to go alone.
Even cities that are known for two officer cars don't use that model all the time (NYC for example typically use one officer cars in the burbs). San Diego actually found it safer and more efficient to have only one officer per car.
The FBI collected information for a period from January 1960 to September 1962 and found that in American cities deploying both types of vehicles, 65% of the officers killed while on duty killed were in two-officer vehicles while only 35% were in one-officer vehicles. This statistic seems to indicate that the presence of a second officer does not guarantee personal safety. From Here
Every time a single officer is killed it becomes a big emotional issue but most departments run single officer cars in most areas for most of the time, with some exceptions for high crime cities.
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German traffic cops would red tag half the cars in America as unsafe I once got pulled over driving me POS car in college which was hot wired, cops thought it was funny.
I have a friend from Austria/Germany. First visit to the US is standing in front of his friends house when a car drives by with no hood. He says to his friend did you see that! And his friend is see what? The car with no hood! Isn't that illegal? No of course not. ... ... ... America greatest country!
Looks like a German version of Maxwell Smart, driving his desk.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
I have a laptop mount in my vehicle that I use to hold a laptop running GPS software while driving. It gets live traffic updates from my phone's WiFi hotspot.
There was an episode where Homer was cooking in its car while driving. When he was about to have an accident, instead of breaking, he sent an S.O.S fax. Reality beats imagination again.
Needs a donut fryer.
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
The FBI collected information for a period from January 1960 to September 1962 and found that in American cities deploying both types of vehicles, 65% of the officers killed while on duty killed were in two-officer vehicles while only 35% were in one-officer vehicles.
That seems like a rather natural correlation: Presumably when there is a potential for a dangerous situation to arise, a two-officer vehicle would be dispatched. Concluding anything about the safety of one-officer vehicles vs. two-officer vehicles from this statistic would be on rather shaky ground.
Then I suggest you trace it to the source and read the whole study. Bear in mind that this isn't the only such study to arrive at the same conclusion.
Departments don't often deploy both in the same area. And they don't route two officer cars across town when one or more single officer cars are closer. They simply send more than one car.
Multiple cars with single officers are more efficient and safer than single cars with dual officers.
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kph is an abbreviation of the unit "kilometer per hour" and the one recommended by most news publishers, e.g. Reuters. km/h is the unit symbol of the unit kph. The symbol would probably have been more appropriate though and I definitely agree that everyone should get rid of non-SI units.
He was driving on the Autobahn 8, but on a segment limited to 100km/h.
Of course there are speed limits on the German autobahn, contrary to what many non-Germans think. As far as I know, there are even more autobahn-kilometers with a speed limit than without (both fixed speed limits and variable ones depending on traffic/weather/...).
The FBI collected information for a period from January 1960 to September 1962 and found that in American cities deploying both types of vehicles, 65% of the officers killed while on duty killed were in two-officer vehicles while only 35% were in one-officer vehicles. This statistic seems to indicate that the presence of a second officer does not guarantee personal safety. From Here
Without knowing the percentages of one and two officer cars and the specifics of their deployment, this statistic indicates nothing. There's simply not enough information. Assuming 1/2 of the cars have a single officer, and 1/2 of the cars have 2 officers, and they are evenly deployed, one could conclude that each officer in a 2 officer car is .833% safer than the officer in a one officer car.
That's not the only problem here. Why are we citing a study from 1960 to 1962? Hasn't the nature of crime and the style of officer deployment changed at least a little in the last 50 years?
My mother has that setup for her reality job.
Car insurance people who travel alot have that setup.
Minus the printer maybe but my mother users her laptop with a gps device for navigating.
of course both of those people use professional metal install kits.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I read somewhere else that he made an illegal pass on the right.
Yeah, I know. Wouldn't it have actually been a story if it had been instead; "Police Stop Man with Mobile Car, in Office",...?
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I just read the headline and figured some nutjob had a copy of MS's new Mobile Office(TM) for Win8/RT/Surface or whatever else they've been blathering about lately....
So, ya...that wudda been strange.
cheers,
My mother has that setup for her reality job.
Really? What does she have for her fantasy job?
I went to a weather-watcher's class, and another person there actually had set up their vehicle for storm chasing. He had a whole office in his car. I suspect that those who get videos of things like tornados probably can market them pretty well.
At least for fame, maybe for money.
Anyhow... these things and more have been standard issue for news vans for some time now. I don't see what the big deal is, as long as he isn't using it while driving.
Also, being set up for use while in the driver's seat does not mean that it's set up for use while driving.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I have lived in GA, SC, MO, NE, CO, AK and have never two cops share a car except for AK. Id often see the staties on the highway from Fairbanks to Anchorage, and they usually had two per car. I am guessing it was more because of the extreme circumstances of living in Alaska, particularly in the winter.
I also worked as a mechanic in GA for a few years back in the early 00's. Working at a Ford dealership means you see a lot of the cop cars. The cars were set up for one person in almost all police cars. The sheriff cars usually were not.
Why? The COPS have that exact same setup and they screw around with the laptop while driving. And I can guarentee that cops are not "expert" drivers that can do that safely.
How about we demand the police stop doing the exact same thing.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That just tells me that being around cops is dangerous.... So avoid police that are in numbers.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...areas where crime is so rampant that cops are afraid to go alone.
It's called Detroit.
ummm.. my ford escape has had all this and more for over 4 years. I have had one accident not caused by me, and the cops were impressed by my setup, not busting me for it lol.
Seeing as the 2-officer cars have twice as many officers, I would assume that there would be a higher percentage of deaths in a 2-officer setup. Usually 1 car gets dispatched to a location, if something goes horribly wrong and there's only 1 officer, then only 1 officer can be killed. If there are 2 officers, then you can potentially have 2 officers killed. Another way to look at it is in percentages (which you seem to like). If you have 60 officers and 40 cars, then you have half your cars with 1 officer and half with 2. Now if you were to randomly kill 20 officers, chances are about 2/3 (close to 65%) of them would have been in 2-officer situations while 1/3 (close to 35%) would have been in 1-officer situations.
That's not a summary, that's a 1:1 copy of the entire article!
Paladin armour.
Also twice as many officers are killed, or you have twice the chance for at least one kill, when a two officer car has a serious crash.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Am I really the only one that considered the possibility that there's fewer deaths cause single officers are more likely to act more carefully?
Am I really the only one that considered the possibility that there's fewer deaths cause single officers are more likely to act more carefully?
In fact that is exactly what happened, contrary to what all those who refuse to read the linked articles but feel compelled to pontificate think.
They also are much more aware while on patrol because they are not always talking with their partners.
I don't even know why the discussion is still raging, because all you have to do is look out your windows at the next cop car you see and take a head count. The vast majority of you will see single officer cars. If we eliminated NYC and Detroit and a few other tough neighborhood cities you will probably find that single officer cars are the norm everywhere in the U.S. On a recent cross country trip I was amazed to find two officer police cars, till I realized I was in Boston.
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I've never seen that, but if it were to ever happen around here, then the car would need a second computer. The nice thing is that whatever games the cops are playing, they'd have really short ping times when they played with each other.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
On the other hand, if someone is willing to kill to get away, there's a chance that with one officer approaching they would do it, but with two officers they'd think that their chances are too low.
s/act more carefully/run away/
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
In the us you do have the split car / truck limits as well.
In Naperville you can go over to the tigerdirect / compusa store and get all kinds of stuff from there warehouse.
Being around cops is dangerous, no matter how many of them there are.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I have 3 times actually seen a cop driving in a car talking on their cell phone, despite a law here banning using a cell while driving. I even managed to get a video of it one of the times. I think the reason respect for cops has decreased so much over the last couple decades is that people are realizing they are hypocritical, power drunk assholes, and not just a few 'bad apples, but the majority of them.
When asked what he was doing, did he respond, "Impersonating an office sir."
You can all groan now.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
That's supposed to be a jab at the female members, or what?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
We seldom see two cops in the same car here in the states. And, as GP states, you can and will see the cops dicking around on the computer while they drive.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
You watch too much TV. Its hard to have dialog in the show unless there are partners.
Seriously, the only places you see two officer cars are in areas where crime is so rampant that cops are afraid to go alone.car.
Around here, it's because cops prefer to cruise with a buddy (wouldn't you?), and have a union that's strong enough to call the shots. And, of course, because we have a chief and city council who are too spineless to press the issue (you just know the union's PR response would be "they're needlessly endangering our brave boys in blue").
The FBI collected information for a period from January 1960 to September 1962 and found that in American cities deploying both types of vehicles, 65% of the officers killed while on duty killed were in two-officer vehicles while only 35% were in one-officer vehicles. This statistic seems to indicate that the presence of a second officer does not guarantee personal safety.
No. And they are less likely to kill innocent bystanders or other people who aren't actually a serious threat, too. Maybe when they're alone, they're less likely to be asshats, and not be playing to their buddies. Maybe it's "mob psychology" that affects the cops. (And of course, maybe it's that if they're alone, they won't go anywhere that might be dangerous until backup arrives.)
And it's not as if cop is that dangerous a job. Being a garbage man, farmer, or truck driver is far more dangerous (top 10 US dangerous occupations: fisherman, logger, pilot, garbage collector, roofer, structural iron worker, farmer, truck driver, powerline worker, taxi driver). But we don't have any TV series about garbage collectors.
So, can they charge people for having a Kleenex box that's not buckled in?
It is simply an image of how the line of thought for police officers has become, "Oh hey, I am the law!"
Power drunk for talking on a cell phone while driving, no. Doesn't change the fact that it shows a blatant disregard for the very same rules he'd pull someone else over for violating.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Respect for cops has not decreased over the last couple decades. My guess is that you are about thirty or thirty five years old, so you only have a couple decades of memory [me too, by the way; I'm 33]. Cops have always been disrespected for being hypocritical power-hungry douchebags simply because they in fact always have been hypocritical power-hungry douchebags -- cf. Javert from Les Mis.
A few years ago I was in the market for a car, and I considered a used police car.
The car makers usually have a police option group, including heavy duty front suspension and a heavy duty electrical system. Just what I need for driving up mountains with radios and telescopes.
Not to mention the intimidation factor. Around here, the cops like Ford Crown Victorias. And only cops drive them. Ford haven't sold them to private individuals for a long time, and they were never a big seller anyway.
...laura
Yes, German autobahns have speed limits, though obviously not everywhere. We have them because they are absolutely necessary. Germany has more than twice the population of California on significantly less area. The traffic often is accordingly.
For the same reason, it is absolutely forbidden to overpass another car on the right except under very specific circumstances (stop and go traffic, or direction lines at a crossing). This is the other thing which this driver has done. In contrast to the costly but socially accepted offence of being 30 km/h (20 mph) too fast on a motorway, this is considered absolutely reckless behaviour by almost everybody and raises eyebrows whenever someone does it. Here is an example for what often happens when idiots do it anyway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AGwQuT0-Lk
In general, driving on German motorways, with or without a speed limit, requires significantly more concentration than driving on Austrian ones (resulting in a significant change of my stress level each time I cross the border), which in turn requires a lot more concentration than driving on a British motorway (in spite of the left-hand side traffic), which in turn is not even comparable to the child's play on American motorways. (At the other end of the spectrum you can continue this with Italy, then probably countries like India.)
The stuff installed in this car makes no sense if the driver didn't (intend to) use it while driving. Germans don't live in their cars, they use them to quickly get from A to B. That's one reason we have smaller cars. If he used this setup, then he risked lives in much the same way as "Turbo Rolf" did in 2003: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1454812/Turbo-Rolf-jailed-for-tailgate-deaths-of-mother-and-girl.html
nobody ever uses that silliness "kph". please, let's stay with km/h on slashdot.
Rich
This is a non-story. A bunch of insurance claim agents and cops have this setup.
Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
Meh, give me Saronite.
Indeed. Plus, an officer on his own I guess is much more likely to wait for backup and choose not to take any unnecessary risks. It is probable that the "my partner's got my back" feeling causes recklessness.
I don't know the guy's deal, but I wouldn't be surprised if he lived in that car. Hmm. Sometimes, it doesn't sound like a horrible idea to save up six grand and live in my car for a year. I'd have all the time I wanted to work on my own projects instead of working a 60-hour IT job.
A lot of the cell phones ban laws exempt "first responders".
I have 3 times actually seen a cop driving in a car talking on their cell phone, despite a law here banning using a cell while driving. I even managed to get a video of it one of the times. I think the reason respect for cops has decreased so much over the last couple decades is that people are realizing they are hypocritical, power drunk assholes, and not just a few 'bad apples, but the majority of them.
In my city, the cops have junior college deplomas in criminology. The more recent graduates have bachelor degrees in criminology and cyberfraud. They train with "incase" and other software tools, they learn law, as required. The driving of the beat is a step forward to forensics, or other crime investigation careers. A few of our policewomen and policemen have mba and/or law degrees. Read where I am from.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Yup. Grandma grew up in the 20's and she would always spit at a police officer. Usually on the ground but in the cops direction in disrespect. Cities like Chicago and NYC are Legendary in their history of all the cops being dirty corrupt or just plain old scumbags.
Your local Police department is no different than your local Street Gang.. Except the street gang is more honest, they let you know they are out to get you, the Police use the lie of "we are here to help"....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They got nothin' on New Orleans, those were some bad, bad cops. Mean MothaFuggahs, personal experience, ....nuf sed
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
Where I live the law specifically exempts on-duty policy officers from the talking on the cell phone while driving restriction. There is no language in there saying that the phone call has to be business related either. This caused a bit of an uproar when the law was introduced...but of course it went through anyway.
I don't understand what part of this constitutes stuff that matters.
Lots of people have mobile offices in their cars. You can even buy caddies and laptop mounts that strap right to the seat in your car, or bolt to the floor.
Before tablets and smartphones became popular I used to have a laptop stand in my car so I could use Microsoft Maps for directions, and I knew of several other people who had similar setups.
These days this kind of thing is pretty commonplace.
I don't know what's up with news stories on Slashdot these days.