March 29th, 2008

By Shelley Byrne sbyrne@paducahsun.com--270.575.8667

Saturday, March 29, 2008

The third time through the J-turn, S-turn and slalom, my thoughts turned from "Wheeeee!" to "don'tthrowup, don'tthrowup, don'tthrowup!"

Thankfully, Paducah police training officer Rob Estes parked his cruiser, rolled down the passenger side window and offered me a cold Diet Mountain Dew.

As I sipped from the can, I watched other officers and a deputy sheriff race their cars through a precision driving pattern set up on Grow Air Park’s paved strip in southeast McCracken County. The joint Paducah Police Department-McCracken County Sheriff’s Department training is designed to teach emergency driving under controlled conditions. Following a safety video, most ran the course six times or so, improving their speeds and decreasing the number of plastic cone casualties.

Six times! And I was turning green after three.

My body, securely belted, slammed side to side as the car’s weight shifted.

“Did you feel those anti-lock brakes kicking in?” Estes asked.

I nodded, struggling to keep the smile pasted on so that he wouldn’t think I was a complete coward.

“I can do this all day,” he said, grinning.

The cars used in training typically go through a set of tires and a set of brakes in a week, he said.

“The J-turn gives people the most trouble,” Estes said, calmly steering. “It’s so tight. Your rear tire tracks closer than your front, and the front swings so wide.”

Estes swung into another tight turn, then threw the car into reverse, spinning the tires.

“To negotiate the obstacles you can’t look at the obstacle right in front of you,” he said. “You have to look through it.”

Drivers must complete the course in 1 minute, 45 seconds if it is dry. When the pavement is wet, they get an extra 15 seconds.

The pavement was damp on our three attempts. Our best time was 1 minute, 28 seconds. And we knocked over only one cone.

Others had a little more trouble.

“We’ve had some doing the slalom that have actually done a 360,” Estes said.

He pointed to ruts in the mud beside the airstrip. “That’s where somebody wiped out.”

Estes and three other instructors told their trainees to drive at 80 percent of their ability.

“That leaves 20 percent for error,” Estes said.

They practiced precision driving as well as emergency backing and pursuit driving. Occasionally an instructor would call to a driver, making him answer his radio in the middle of steering. Other times instructors would have one switch on a siren.

The distractions helped simulate what happens in the real world, when officers must divide their attention and keep themselves and those around them safe.

Distractions I can handle, I decided. It’s the 45 mph around a curve in reverse that did me in.

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