Page 388 - NIXBOOK

My Ford Expedition was a big beast with 4 wheel drive but it was not designed specifically for police duty and while it could go
fast in a straight line, I had to slow way down to take corners or turns because it felt unstable and shaky like it would want to
roll over at high speeds. I don’t think I ever got much over 100mph in that thing. For the record here, my all-time top speed was
126 mph in the Chevy Caprice. No, I wasn’t responding to an actual emergency, I just found myself on a highway with no traffic
around and I took advantage of the opportunity to see what the car could do. It could do 126. Which was fast enough for me.

So anyway the Ford Expedition had some serious handling shortcomings but it was my first police vehicle to come with a key
remote for the doors, (!) and the windows were also electric powered, which meant that when a citizen wanted to talk to me
from outside my passenger side window, I didn’t have to awkwardly stretch and lean over anymore to literally hand crank the
window down. Literally. Roll it down. Back in those days the police cars we bought from the factory were either regular normal
cars we had to upgrade with modifications, like electrical system improvements for extra load capacity, or we would sometimes
be able to get factory upgraded “police package” cars, which might even include factory installed spot lights, extra fuses, a larger
engine, a shotgun rack, traffic radar mounts, radio antennas, and bigger brake rotors. But every new police car had to spend a
couple weeks in the city’s public works garage getting prepared for police work by our city mechanic; a partition (“cage”) was
installed between the front and rear seats to keep the prisoners secure, a bumper push bar assembly would be bolted onto the
front end, a light bar would be wired onto the roof, and the siren and switches and radios would be installed somewhere between
the front seats. For this vehicle, I made my own center console to hold the siren and light switches. Made it out of pine boards,
covered with thick headliner material to match the rest of the interior.

I had never seen one that big before but it seemed like a great idea. Because we had removed the stock cup holder console thing
from between the two front seats there was a massive amount of room so I made it extra tall and wide so I could rest my arm on
it comfortably with the emergency light switches right under my fingers. And there was a hinged lid to hold my ticket book and
jacket in there, too. This was back in the day before computers terminals in cars were invented, so as you can see I had lots and
lots of room. Nobody else had anything close to this and when it was completed I was quite pleased with myself.

I had a lot of room for gear and equipment in that thing. I
eventually got used to the fact it could drive fast but only in a
straight line; any high speed turning or cornering at speed was a
tricky proposition; the whole rig felt just a little too heavy. Well
that’s a consequence of outfitting a regular old civilian model car
to professional grade duty use, which was the case because nothing
about that SUV from the factory was an upgrade for police driving.
th
Pictured here: September 11 , 2002. First anniversary of 9/11; the
local elementary school wanted to do something for the police.