I recently attended a 2 day Street Survival Seminar sponsored by Caliber Press. The speaker was great and the fast moving program really made everybody think. Beside the great speaker and input from attendees, we spent a lot of time watching officers being killed. Video was taken from the in-car cameras of patrol cars with the permission of the departments and families of the officers involved. By seeing mistakes made by other officers, we hope everybody can learn and avoid these same mistakes. We always need to be thinking ahead and planning our moves, no matter what kind of call we are on.
As of this writing, the ODMP.org website says 51 law enforcement officers have lost their lives in the line of duty in 2011. There is still a week left this month, making 2011 on track to be the most deadly year for officers in recent memory. PLEASE, plan ahead and be safe out there!
Our department plans to have in-service training with practical exercises on such things as traffic stops and domestic disturbances. Domestics can be one of the most deadly situations for an officer, but this year so far traffic stops and arrest warrant service are the situations in which the most officers have lost their lives. Many of the suspects were REPEAT OFFENDERS who should not have even been on the street!
Mother Nature is still very fickle. After having temperatures nearing 80 degrees last week, and 70 on Sunday, it SNOWED last night! I rode the Gold Wing to work Monday evening, and when I headed home in the morning, it was 59 degrees. However, the forecast for the next morning was rain and 40 degrees, so the Wing stayed in the garage. The forecast for the next week is for highs in the upper 30’s and lower 40’s and rain/snow. I-80 Speedway at Greenwood, Nebraska has their season opener scheduled for Friday and Saturday April 1st & 2nd. I’m not sure that will come off if the weather doesn’t change.
At the pit meeting for the Saturday portion of the Spring Nationals, it was announced that Beatrice Speedway has been in contact with other tracks to attempt to formulate rules for a factory stock/street stock/pro-am class. It sounds like in 2011 we will pretty much run the factory stock rules that have been in place the last 2 seasons. In 2012, we will be an IMCA sanctioned class, but will be “grandfathered” to run the 4412 Holley carburetor.
Details were sketchy, so I don’t understand if this will be a “new” class or will we be going back to having to buy an IMCA license and running in the IMCA stock car class. Beatrice Speedway still has not released rules to the Speedway webmaster, so there is nothing in print, just what we have by word of mouth.
The factory stock/Pro-am class had 21 cars last Saturday. Seven of those cars were Beatrice regulars. Two were regulars at Beatrice in 2009 and call Thunderhill Speedway at Mayetta, Kansas their home track. The 3rd & 5th place finishers are regulars at U.S. 30 in Columbus while the 4th place finisher doesn’t call any one track “home.” There were some cars from I-80 Speedway at Greenwood and I believe the winner came from Iowa, as I did not recognize the name. I hope our class has a good car count throughout the 2011 season. The only thing that may hurt us is the high cost of fuel to get to tracks that are very far away.
If the weather ever stabilizes to where we can ride our motorcycles for more than a day at a time, we all need to be careful as riders as well as drivers. Grand Island, Nebraska recorded a motorcycle fatality Tuesday from a crash that happened Monday afternoon. A car apparently pulled in front of the motorcycle after stopping for a stop sign. PLEASE, everybody, look both ways - twice!!
Also in the news this week was the story of a drunk driver who struck and killed 4 motorcyclists on I-29 in Iowa last August. His BAC was nearly FIVE TIMES the legal limit after the accident. He pled no contest and was sentenced in Logan County, Iowa to 50 years in prison. He was 21 years old at the time of the crash, and it was his 2nd offense. Of particular interest was the comment of his defense attorney, who said he felt he could have gotten the charges reduced or dismissed because of the crash happening in a construction zone!! If the case had gone to trail the defense was prepared to call an expert who would have laid the blame on highway construction at the crash site. Unbelievable!!!
As we venture out on two wheels this spring, please, slow down and keep aware of your surroundings. Most importantly of all, get to where you are going safely!!
Ernie: It is sad to read about the DUI driver who was sentenced to 50 yrs for killing the 4 motorcyclists. You and I and many of your readers also ride; and many of the readers including myself work(ed) in some form of law enforcement. The sad part is, if you were to poll the readers as to how many have sent correspondence to their state senator in the past 10 yrs in an attempt to get NE DUI laws changed, the showing would be dismal at best. FS
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