Australian Police

[Big Rat]

Now that there are no new V8 rear wheel drive cars produced for the Australian domestic market the Police down under have a problem.

The vast majority if not all there high performance drivers are only trained on rear wheel drive vehicles with large capacity engines.

Lexus have marked and equipped RCF's for demonstration and publicity uses and although GSF's are a suitable vehicle for the task no decisions have been made.

Insiders say the quandary for the cops is a nationwide retraining programme, or buy Lexus or American.

Big Rat

[Chuckie478]

Can't need much training to drive different drivetrain cars can they?

[Big Rat]

22 minutes ago, Chuckie478 said:

Can't need much training to drive different drivetrain cars can they?

Fraud so Matey it's a numbers game, couple of weeks away from normal duties - refresher courses you start multiplying that country wide into thousands of man hours mounts up.

If they don't remember we live in a very litigious age 🙄

Big Rat

[Chuckie478]

I'm surprised it would take as long as a couple of weeks for a trained police driver to switch cars.

[Big Rat]

The techniques employed for large front engined rear wheel drive, are going to be quite different to powerful front engined hot hatch type vehicle, which I can't see them using simply because of the size of the vehicle.

They traditionally prefer large 4 door saloons or estates as they are able to carry the equipment have a reasonable level of comfort     and a more professional presence.

Im guessing they may well consider 6/8 cylinder turbo petrol and or four wheel drive, so to answer your question if they don't go the the 'trad V8 ' route then to get people up to an acceptable level of competence despite there experience takes time.

After all like all things to do with Policing there damned if they do damned if they don't 😏

Big Rat

[Chuckie478]

43 minutes ago, Big Rat said:

After all like all things to do with Policing there damned if they do damned if they don't 😏

This is very true. 

I didn't really make my point clear.  I wasn't expecting no training on new cars, I was just surprised it would be a couple of weeks.

They're going to need similar type/size car.  I was assuming (probably incorrectly) that is is for motorway patrol/high speed pursuit which I would guess means the officers involved are highly trained and experienced anyway.  RWD is usually seen to be more difficult than FWD so they'll effectively be going to an easier car to drive.  A change in engine layout shouldn't be a huge problem either.  Cars are generally pretty easy to drive fairly quickly.  It's not as if all RWD v8 saloons are the same, presumably the police need training when they got a new set of Commadores anyway, how would this be much different?

The vehicles I can see them needing more training for would be the 4x4/SUV due to the difference in weight distribution/centre of gravity.

[Big Rat]

From the times I visit family they already use huge numbers of 4x4 city- town and country ute's to use there parlance.

Never seen the type of 4x4 Brit Police use BMW X5 and the like.

I understand as well for political reasons they go for a lot of home grown and Japanese vehicles, whereas in New Zealand quite recently the Police had 4 Toyota's on test and there was uproar,initially.

Still I suppose as with everything else it will come down to money 🤑

Big Rat