Specials Driving Police Vehicles

[Waterford_man]

What is a utility driving test? Basic vehicles

Rich

[GymRat]

I have a couple of issues with specials driving respone vehicles:
First, as a patrol sergeant, I have no response vehicles to spare on my shift, those I do have available are going to the regular, full time drivers.
The issue is not with their standard of driving; I have no doubt that specials could be trained to drive to an "I" (emergency) call as well as (or better) than me. My issue is what they do when they get there. In the Met as with many other forces, resources are strapped, and quite often there is only one vehicle available to attend serious accidents, assaults, domestics etc, as all the rest are busy. I question whether some specials have the breadth of experience to be able to deal with these incidents unsupervised. Regular officers have to prove their experience before being granted a course, how much longer will it take a special to get the same level of experience?
Before I'm shouted down, I am NOT anti special. They do a valuable role in support of the full time service, and the majority perform that role very well. They are not full time, fully trained officers, and should not seek to be.

[Waterford_man]

I suppose things are differant in the county forces where there are difficulties in Officers getting between towns/villages.

In these circumstances and with adequate cars available with the right level of training I can understand the need.

In the MET However if all boroughs are going through the reduction in panda cars that those in my area are then I agree with Gymrat that these should be driven/crewed accordingly. By all means pair a special with a reg.

As Ive posted before I know of one relief that has a permenant special who works whenever his relief is on,has a greater local knowledge than most on the relief and is a real asset to the team. He is the operator on the area car,bomb car or whatever he is rotared to operate on is treated no differantly than a reg. I suspect that this situation is unusual though.

Rich

[GymRat]

Exactly, he/she may be very good, but they are posted as operator (sorry, passenger for all the non Met readers)
If we were to give specials response courses, the danger is that we end up with a crew crewed entirely with specials attending serious incidentsb without a regular officer to oversee them. As a supervisor, I would not allow that situation......

[Waterford_man]

The chance of that happening locally is virtually nil as there is only one special on the borough,except for the divisional officer who happens to work on team with an entirely differant relief.

I wonder what Wandsworth Borough do as they have a very active Special's Team and their own website. However we are getting away from the subject here.

I dont have an issue with 2 specials crewing a panda car though in a reporting basis role as opposed to response.

At least we living in the MET area are generally lucky in each car still in the main being double crewed.

Rich

[SgtAngel]

Bingo....

MSU?

Could the Met's Marine Support Unit. Specials are permitted float along the Thames using blue's and two's.

[luckyguye]

Compared to Notts, it sounds like everyone has the right idea towards driving. Notts has just changed around its driving policy which now stops Specials from driving transits. I have been a Special for 7 years and was one of only two that could drive them. To make matters worse, there was no regulars at our station that could drive them as most of them were either probationers or just out of probation and didn't have D1 on their license. Now here comes the lack of common sense bit. I also work as support staff for Notts as a mobile CCTV operator driving, you guessed it, a Mercedes sprinter van. They told both myself and the part time operator that we couldn't drive the vans until we had passed a 3 week response course. Ok, no problems there then, until they said "sorry but we can't allow you to do a course as your not a Police officer"  8O  Eventually they gave us an exemption but then said we couldn't carry passengers. But we have to have two persons to operate the van we said. Ah, i that case, get a response officer to drop the other person off when you reach your destination. HHMMMM  :hair:

[SgtAngel]

Certainly in the Met the driving school does not have the capacity to provide enough courses for its regular officers. The organisation cannot afford to send someone on a 3 week driving course, for them to work no more than 16 hours a month.

Since writing the above post the MPS have now changed their stance. Apparently Specials can now become response drivers provided that they are supported by the Borough Commander. As far as I know, none have become drivers yet, but Traffic are recruiting for Specials so I suspect that is where it might happen first.

[Waterford_man]

Traffic are recruiting for Specials?

Tell me more Metplod I am be interested yet.

I do know of one Special who is now driving the Van or Supervisors Van on a borough.

[SgtAngel]

Traffic are recruiting for Specials?

Tell me more Metplod I am be interested yet.

I do know of one Special who is now driving the Van or Supervisors Van on a borough.

They have a site, but you need membership to the forum http://www.msctd.com/index.html

The Met are basically looking to add specials to the traffic portfolio and have them dealing with community traffic isssues.

As for the special who is driving the station van, I'm pretty sure that they should not be as a basic driver. If anything all they can do is ferry it from A to B, but not patrol in it. They also shouldn't be driving the supervisors van unless they have been familiarised with it by a borough driving assessor. Quite why they would want to drive the supervisor is beyond me. I think that they are awful and do not handle very well in any condition. Ours spends most of its time sat in the yard.

[Waterford_man]

I think its a case of its the only vehicle available  :-?

Course completed and assessed.

Oddly enough now not only is there a shortage of vehicles per manpower but there is a shortage of drivers as well

[scott1]

Hi
I joined the specials in 1993 in Scotland.At that time we under went a 30-45 minute drive in a transit van with a traffic officer.If the traffic officer thought you were a competent driver you were authorised to drive police general purpose vehicles including vans.There was recent debate about specials driving police vehicles and as G8 was approaching it was decided to put all specials in our force through a 1 day driving course with a traffic sergeant.This included cars and transit vans.Prior to the days training we were required to undergo an eye test/blood pressure check and a written highway code test.We are not authorised to drive with blue lights or two tones,or to drive above the speed limit etc.

[Peter]

I have been a response trained driver in Lancashire for over 5 years, after taking the same 3 week course as the regulars - my car had me, the instructor, and 2 regulars in. I am also response trained for the section vans and sprinters.

I take the point mentioned in other replies about lack of vehicles. Nights, we are double crewed. Having 2 drivers who can both respond is excellent. There have been times when I have been paired with a regular who has not done their response course, only the basic non-response course. Any emergency jobs, I drove. Also, if supervision trust you, I can't see why we can't drive under response conditions, providing we have the same training as the regulars. If we don't turn out for a period of time, take the ticket off us.

[sparky]

Similar question why is it that you are not allowed to drive police vehicles until you’ve been in at least 2 years.

My force has a lot of new specials and old we struggle to get transport let alone drivers, as few have licences to drive police vehicles.
I am also relatively new(special) and have had lots of experience driving vehicles. These have included dump trucks, tractors, aerial platforms, jcb, 4tonners for the T.A. class 2 HGV, Class 1 PSV from 21, been a driving instructor for the territorial army, and civilian driving instructor from 23,   hold a NPPL pilots licence, a full car licence and full motorbike licence (from18 now 34), but stilled not allowed to drive until 2 years and 3 week course?

Any comment ?
Any quicker way to get qualified?
Also I was told you also had trouble getting psv drivers to drive your buses?

[Waterford_man]

Going back to my previous post , the special in question is now a special Sergeant with up to 50 SPCs to look after (Not that all of them are active).

The borough in question has a policy that specials can work in any area of Policing that regular officers do including the various squads, also that they will be put forward as candidates for response driving courses if they are putting in the hours.