Pulled Over

Earlier this year we blogged about championship-winning motorcycle racer James "Bubba" Stewart being arrested for impersonating a police officer. Now his case has been adjudicated.

The arrest arose from an incident in which Stewart, driving a Toyota pickup, used red and blue flashing lights he bought at a flea market to pull over a car not far from his Florida home. Unfortunately for Stewart, the car he tried to pull over was occupied by several real police officers.

The initial charge of impersonating an officer was reduced to a misdemeanor charge of using inappropriate flashing lights on a motor vehicle. This week Stewart pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor and the court in Osceola County fined him $500 and ordered him to complete 75 hours of community service.

Perhaps his community service can include him telling his many young fans how colossally dumb it is to put flashing lights in your car and pretend that you’re a cop.

Racing with the State Police

Yesterday’s announcement by the Governor and others that a Formula One race would be coming to New Jersey in 2013 included a brief mention of an important distinction between New Jersey and virtually all of the other states: In New Jersey, all motor racing falls under the oversight of the State Police.

Where the other states largely ignore the matter, in New Jersey there exists rules and regulations governing the design and operation of races tracks, the safety standards to which competing vehicles must adhere, and more. These rules and regulations are found in Title 13, Law and Public Safety, Chapter 62. Motor Vehicle Race Track Rules, and interested parties can find them online at

http://www.state.nj.us/njsp/info/pdf/racing_regulations.pdf .

While these rules and regulations have been around for over 50 years they are updated regularly. Racing, after all, is quite different today than it was 50 years ago. Happily, one of those differences is that today it is much safer than it was 50 years ago, and it is no exaggeration to say that the New Jersey Division of State Police has played a significant role in those safety improvements.

Today, Troopers visit New Jersey’s racing facilities regularly, just as they have for over 50 years. They work with speedway operators and individual competitors to ensure that the requirements are being understood and met.

Between now and the waving of the green flag over Formula One in New Jersey there will be much interaction between the State Police and the event organizers. On race day in 2013, you can be sure that you will see a State Police presence at the track, concerning themselves not only with the usual large-event subjects such as traffic and crowd control, but also with the safe conduct of the event.

A Most Distinctive Police Car

This black V8-powered roadster was once Scotland Yard’s first line of defense against speeding bikers and criminals with high-powered sedans, and it is scheduled to be auctioned off later this month in England.

This police-issue 1962 Daimler SP250 Dart will cross the block at on October 22. It’s one of 26 Daimler Darts purchased new to serve as high-speed pursuit vehicles for the Metropolitan Police Service of London.

At the time, it was reported in the Daily Mirror that the car "will be a great help in curbing the menace of the ‘ton uppers’ – hooligan motorcyclists who boast of doing a ‘ton’ (100 MPH) in built-up areas. If necessary the Darts could also be used to chase car bandits – who have often escaped in the past because their getaway cars were much more powerful than ordinary police saloons."

Lest you think that the police in the UK have taprooms, a "saloon" in the King’s English is what we in the States term a sedan.

This and the other cars ran Daimler’s 140hp hemi-head 2.5-liter V-8s and were equipped with Borg-Warner three-speed automatic transmissions.

The example being auctioned was decommissioned from police service in 1967, then used as an official course car for 13 years at the Goodwood Revival. Much of the original police equipment remains with the Dart, including the chrome Winkworth police bell that warned of the car’s rapid approach.

If you are interested in buying a distinctive British police pursuit vehicle, visit http://www.Historics.co.uk .

The photos appearing here are courtesy of the auctioneers and the story came to us from our friends at Hemmings Motor News.

Going Up?

Another amusing recent local news item:

About a dozen people stuck in an elevator at the Township Public Safety Building were rescued through the elevator car hatch on Monday night around midnight.

The elevator was stuck between the second and third floors. The elevator occupants were leaving a meeting of the township Zoning Board of Adjustment, which adjourned about 11:30 p.m. There was no illness or injury reported.

Okay, there’s nothing funny about getting stuck in an elevator. But, if you are going to get stuck in an elevator, getting stuck in the "Public Safety Building" has a certain irony to it.

Members of the local emergency services squads assisted with this rescue.

New Life for an Old Rig

All across the country, smaller communities often acquire fire apparatus and ambulances second-hand, from larger communities. This is an economic reality, and typically the small communities do an excellent job of making do with something less than the absolute latest and greatest.

This is true here in New Jersey as well, where the fire company in a very small town not far from the offices of the Badge Company of New Jersey just put its second used ambulance into service.

"This is like a retirement home for ambulances," the Fire Chief quipped, but with wise budgeting and wise spending the community was able to refurbish the ambulance to the extent that it can scarcely be distinguished from a new one.

Pull Over

The last Ford Crown Victoria rolled off a Canadian assembly line yesterday, marking the end of the big Ford cars that have been popular with police departments for decades.

Including civilian models, since 1979 almost 10 million Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Cars – so-called Panther Platform vehicles – have been sold. But sales numbers have been falling steadily in recent years due to changing consumer preferences and demand for better fuel economy and performance.

In recent years the cars have only been offered to fleet buyers, not individual retail customers. Now all production has stopped. Ford says that it sold about 80,000 Crown Victorias and Town Cars combined last year. That figure just wasn't enough to support a factory capable of producing 250,000 cars a year.

The Crown Victoria has been popular with police and fleet users because of its roominess, ruggedness and relative simplicity. The Panther Platform was an old-fashioned body-on-frame design which, while heavier than other cars, has an excellent reputation for being able to withstand heavy, punishing use. The Crown Victoria has also been an easy-to-service vehicle.

Ford has already begun marketing vehicles to take up the Crown Victoria's role in police fleet use. The automaker has started producing a specially designed Taurus Police Interceptor as well as a version of the Explorer tailored for police use. Chrysler and General Motors are marketing their own police car options with the Charger and the Caprice PPV.  And Carbon Motors, about whom we wrote back in 2008, is still planning to produce their own specialty police car.

Police agencies aren’t the only fleet operators mourning the loss of the Crown Vic. Taxi companies and livery service companies face some hard choices. Vehicles such as the Ford Transit Connect van are being marketed as a taxi cab, along with a Nissan van. For livery service companies Ford is making a special version of the Lincoln MKT, a large crossover SUV.

In one sense, we have been though this before. When Chevrolet stopped making the large, body-on-frame rear-drive Caprice in 1996, police officers nationwide were unhappy to see it go. But the Crown Victoria was a readily-available alternative, and Ford through the years kept tweaking the car to improve its suitability for police service.

But today the alternative choices are not as obvious. The Charger has ample performance but is smaller; the Caprice PPV is a new and as-yet unproven model in the American market; and the Ford replacements are based on front-wheel-drive designs, heretofore weaker for police use. The Carbon Motors entry simply isn’t here yet. Fleet buyers have a headache on their hands.

The Ford Taurus Police Interceptor

The Ford Explorer Police Interceptor

The Chevrolet Caprice PPV

The Dodge Charger Pursuit

The Carbon Motors e7

Clutch Play II

It has happened again.

Last year we wrote about thieves in Philadelphia who had to abandon a FedEx truck they were hijacking, because it had a manual transmission and none of them knew how to drive it.
　
In today’s news:
　
A Jersey City man was robbed late Monday, but was spared losing his 2007 Infiniti when the thieves couldn't drive a stick shift vehicle.
　
As the victim was removing items from the trunk of his car about 10:50 p.m., a man in his mid-20s walked up to him and pointed a silver revolver at his face, reports said. An accomplice, also in his mid-20s, took credit cards from the victim, as well as two cellphones and an Apple iTouch and his house and car keys.
　
The robbers jumped in the Infiniti, but they couldn’t get the car in gear and fled on foot.