Coffee and Chases

To continue from my previous posts…

I think I need to explain something about them. I love pursuits in principle, fast cars and bad guys is a winning combination for me. The problem is that I have been in a couple of serious accidents in my time in and out of work, and I really don’t want to have to have the ambo crew and trumpton drag me out with neck braces on a stretcher again if I can help it.

The other, probably more major problem is that I think I was off on a bad start with pursuits.

My first ever pursuit was when I was very fresh faced and just weeks into playing about on the streets. I was in the area car (for non police readers – the fastest car and best trained driver the borough/department/team has, usually a BMW 5 series or similar) with a long service PC.

We had stopped in the petrol station and I had done the excited probationer thing of staring blankly about whilst trying to catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the garage doors. Mark, the area car driver, had done the usual thing of mentioning coffee numerous times and how thirsty he was and looking pointedly at me. The sharper of you may have worked out what I should have been doing, but it took me a less subtle hint. “The coffees aren’t getting themselves probby.” That did the job.

As I was walking back to the car with a paper cup of steaming hot coffee for Mark and a hot chocolate for me, he was on the radio. I slipped into the car seat and the Mark looked at me. “That car parked in front of us was nicked via a burglary. A nice arrest coming up for you my son.” I looked ahead and saw a navy blue Skoda, which at that moment drove off the forecourt and sped away. My first pursuit. I was so excited.

We were off at speed, and Mark shouted us up on the radio. I couldn’t reach the mike due to the drinks, couldn’t do anything as both hands were tied up. “Open the window, so I can chuck the cups!” I shouted.
“Not a chance, the drinks are hot!” came the reply. We took a corner sharply and Mark threw the mike down to take the corner and then scrabbled about for it as we straightened up. “Open the window so I can chuck the cups for God’s sake, I can do the commentary then!” I yelled. Mark kept driving and kept the potted commentary going, pausing only to shout back at me “I’m not wasting the coffee.”

The commentary came in dribs and drabs from Mark as he drove – eventually another unit stopped the car ahead of us and we roared up. Mark leapt out and ran to the bandit vehicle, as he did I could see the crew of the other Police car smashing the windows of the stolen car with their asps to get in. I couldn’t open our car door. I couldn’t do anything. I still had the coffees in my hands. I was almost crying with frustration as another unit pulled up, boxed me in and ran to join the fun.

As they hauled back the suspects and the police officers started to disperse, Mark wondered back to the car chatting to a Sergeant. Sergeant says: “Why were you doing the commentary? I thought you were double crewed?”
Mark “Yeah, my operator had just bought hot drinks and was too stingy to throw them.” Sergeant (whilst looking at me with disgust): “Bloody probationers.”


Me and pursuits were never going to get on with each other after that.

By the way, I am still sans my own internet, hence the delay in posts. I've written a few now and will post them when I get access, please keep the comments coming!