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Australian Police Get McLaren and Aston Martin Supercars
An anonymous reader writes: Australia's New South Wales police department has added a pair of new cars to their fleet that are going to be very hard to outrun, a McLaren 650S and an Aston Martin Vanquish Volante. The vehicles aren't going to be used on the job, but as a promotional tool to help raise money for the families of fallen police. "These sponsorship arrangements are designed to promote community engagement with NSW Police. This agreement is designed to promote tomorrow's Police Legacy Wall to Wall ride and celebrate 100 years of Women in Policing," a police spokesperson said in a statement.
Since it's a sponsorship, they don't cost anything.
In the past, the NSW Police have had an Audi RS4 and a Porsche Panamera donated to them. With these arrangements the car manufacturer foots all the costs, included servicing and registration, with the police force responsible for only the fuel.
Given that they were donated at no cost, precisely zero seconds.
It's still stupid, but no, they didn't pay for them.
That said, we keep seeing the stereotype that the key ability to successful police enforcement is to be able to drive faster than the criminals. Which is nonsense. The strength of the police force versus criminals is that there's a million of them, pre-scattered across the country, and they communicate with each other in realtime. You don't have to catch up with the fleeing perp, you're already past them - or at least, another officer is. You just need to not lose them (aka, a helicopter, or better, a drone; things like StarChase help too) and keep the net around them tight enough that you can nab them if they stop (which has to happen eventually), but not so tight that they feel the need to drive like a maniac and endanger the public. Heck, you can even make them stop in a place where they're no threat to the public, such as spike strips on a closed road or the like. But you never need to have car chases through busy public areas - at least not for more than a brief initial period. It's pointless.
There's a interesting statistics on the topic here. 91% of police chases are over non-violent crime. 233 suspects and their passengers (some of them innocent) die in police chases every year in the US, as well as 87 innocent bystanders and 3 police officers - more than the number killed by floods, tornadoes, lightning and hurricanes combined. 42% of police chases were over nothing more than simple traffic infractions. 15% were for suspected drunk driving - which just adds even more danger to bystanders.
Police chases make great TV, but usually they're hardly worth the risk unless there's a serious danger of A) losing the suspect, and B) the suspect committing a violent crime after being lost.
"This administration is so incompetent that they cover their tracks with bigger tracks." - Seth Meyers
The vehicles aren't going to be used on the job, but as a promotional tool to help raise money for the families of fallen police
The vehicles are a flash way to promote a charitable cause, and a bridge between petrol heads and police, nothing more.
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Add on to this that Australian police forces haven't gone full paramilitary like the US has. The chances of having a gun pulled on you by a random member of the public here is incredibly small so the coppers aren't permanently scared.
If you want to see the difference watch this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - This is a video of police in Brisbane, a major capital city, accepting a dance challenge outside a pub while on security detail for the recent G20.