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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.
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.
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Yeah but cops get special training to do so in a safe and (&$&$/&)(/" Carrier Lost
We don't have crime in Germany. It went out of style 35 years ago as old-fashioned.
Stephan
Is this really so uncommon in Germany that it warrants a news story?
In Germany, when you are driving a car, you are supposed to be . . . well, driving. And not texting, adjusting your make-up, fixing paper jams or spilling your hot coffee on yourself so that you can sue McDonald's. A driver may only use a cell phone if the car has a Freisprecheinrichtung (speaker phone) installed.
In the picture, the laptop on the dashboard suspiciously looks like it was installed to be used while driving. So the guy could check his email or use video chat while moving. If the setup had looked like it was only meant to be used while parked, the cops wouldn't have had any problem with it. But since there isn't any law prohibiting such a setup, the cops couldn't charge him. However, it looked like the laptop on the dashboard would obstruct his view. For that, they might have been able to ticket him.
So I would just say that his setup raises a few eyebrows. I suspect that the guy was some sort of traveling salesman who was on the road all day, and it was very convenient for him to have a full car office. But to use it while driving? Well, the cops probably gave him a harsh warning about that.
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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).
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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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In Germany, when you are driving a car, you are supposed to be . . . well, driving. And not texting, adjusting your make-up, fixing paper jams or spilling your hot coffee on yourself so that you can sue McDonald's.
Having driven both in Germany and in the US for quite extended distances, there often is a significant difference. Germany has a much higher population density, and that translates to a much higher traffic density. Moreover, the fact that there are different speed limits for different classes of vehicles (80km/h for trucks and most trailers, 100km/h for many buses and some trailers, unlimited or 120km/h for normal cars) leads to frequent lane changes and other manoeuvring. On the US50, I can just put a brick on the accelerometer, tie the wheel, and go to sleep (or email) for half an hour. Driving on the German Autobahn is often (though not always) more like driving in, say, inner-city Boston. If you are not reasonably alert, there is a high chance of an accident.
Stephan
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.
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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?
Perhaps you should be using German names here. I'm really not versed in the road systems of world's countries, but I'm probably not the only one who - on the basis of having a third (neither American nor German) entirely different system in my country - fails to see the exact difference between a "freeway" and a "highway", not to mention the fact that whatever the difference between the two is in the US is probably different from the difference between the two in Germany
Fwiw, in America, there is a formal framework for naming conventions, (the ideal not being implemented is another issue). The conventions are based upon interruptions from cross traffic and the number of lanes (in each direction) both additionally affecting the limitations on speed. I don't know anything about the German system, other than the legendary limitlessness of the Autobahn.
Freeways (65 mph || 109 kph) are "free" of cross traffic (having nothing to do with tolls). Probably the same as the Turnpikes on the East Coast. (ymmv.)
Highways (55 mph || 92 kph) can have cross traffic, but the intersection always gives the highway the right of way -- cars crossing are required to stop first before proceeding. (ymmv.)
Expressways (45 mph || 75 kph) have traffic control lights at each intersection. (ymmv.)
Access to all three are fixed by design and prevents anyone from stopping for any reason other than an emergency. (ymmv.)
The exception is the Interstate (Federal) freeway's planned rest stops that can be accessed only to and from the freeway. (ymmv.)
"Roads" outside municipalities (you know them as towns or cities) are an extension of a street leaving or entering the city limits and can have any type of intersection or any type of restriction for stopping to access roadside commerce -- basically a combination of a highway and a expressway, becoming more informal as it becomes more rural. (There's further naming rules within the municipality for Avenues, Boulevards, Streets, Lanes, Courts, how many lanes allowed each way and how all of this affects speeds -- unrelated to this post.)
Some Interstate freeways have recently increased speed limits and can be at 70, 75 or in some cases, such as in Texas, 80 (mph || 134 kph); if it's posted as such. Otherwise, the speed limits mentioned are in affect.
If it's posted with the higher speed, it will probably say "Maximum Speed" instead of "Speed Limit". There's a difference. It's important, especially if you want to avoid a speeding ticket. For example: If you're going with the flow of traffic at 72 mph in a 65 mph "Speed Limit" zone, it's supposedly okay. If you're going 76 mph in a 75 mph "Maximum Speed" zone, it supposedly doesn't matter what the speed of the traffic flow is doing. Ymmv.
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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.
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That just tells me that being around cops is dangerous.... So avoid police that are in numbers.
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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.
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
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