From Alderman Ed Smith with Leo McCord
Prepared by Frans Stracensky www.whocares4us.org
In this age of affirmed Global Warming from the use and release of fossil fuels from car & truck emissions and in light of the recent exorbitant rate increases in fuel cost, it has come to my attention that the Great City of Chicago can become a leader in doing it’s share to both save millions of taxpayer dollars and also help in the fight to save the planet by replacing it’s fleet of Police vehicles from the gas guzzling type we now have to the Hybrid type that are now available to the city.
Of course I expect an outcry from those that are resistant to change and also from those that profit from these totally outdated, cumbersome, unreliable, maintenance intensive, dangerous to the public safety, injurious to the officers driving them and generally fuel guzzling police cruisers. So let us begin by addressing each of these issues one at a time.
The type of Police cruiser made generally available to large cities are of the Large Luxury type vehicles that have a record of extremely poor gas efficiency, 6-10 MPG, when running untuned. They also have one of the worst maintenance records of all current cars manufactured, 25th. out of 30 rated by Consumer Digest.
In this day and age of superior telecommunication it is no longer necessary to risk the lives of innocent public bystanders when apprehending fleeing suspects because of high speed chases because Air support can spot the chase and place road blocks where necessary to apprehend fleeing suspects. Besides Hybrid cars actually are a lot faster in short pickup then the behemoth current fleet of cars. The Toyota Prius, for example, goes from 0-30 in :3.1 seconds flat [www.allpar.com], the Ford Crown Vic 0-30 in slightly more than :6.1 seconds [www.hemmings.com]. The Prius goes 0-50 in :7.1 seconds flat, the Ford Crown Vic 0-45 in :12.1 seconds. So you see that the
The current line of police cars used are actually a hindrance to capturing fleeing suspects because of there size considering the fact that many streets in Chicago are very narrow and prohibitive to the operation of such vehicles in any form of chase or in even responding to emergency calls because they can’t get through the traffic in most parts of the city.
The current vehicles have, as mentioned before, one of the worst vehicle maintenance records of all vehicles manufactured, ranking 6.0. The Toyota Prius on the other hand has a 9.3 vehicle overall rating record of all cars followed closely by the Honda. Both of theses manufacturers are the only current makers of available Hybrid Police Vehicles.
There is a potential for savings of millions of dollars in cars repairs alone on a fleet of Hybrid Police cars versus the mindless wasting of tax dollars by keeping these polluting, terribly inefficient current vehicles in service.
Because of the size and the bad design of the current police cruisers they pose a real and serious threat to the safety of both the police drivers & and the innocent public bystanders. In crash test the Hybrid vehicles did far better then the oversized Crown Vic’s and other large size vehicles. This offers both protection to the police drivers as well as to the public at large. In maneuverability The Hybrids proved to be significantly mare agile and maneuverable then the poorly designed gas guzzling cars. An analogy could be made, say between a swift rabbit and a big over weight hog. I’m sure you all get the picture.
One would think that after all these years in the business, the current manufactures would design a driver car seat that wouldn’t cause serious back problems. Well they haven’t. Just ask any of the older police drivers about their backs after years behind the wheel, they will tell you what a bad seat can do. The Hybrid manufactures have addressed this issue and have designed the best and most supportive seats in the industry. Just consider the days off because of back pain that will no longer happen because of such a small detail that has been neglected by the current suppliers of police vehicles. Ford Crown
Now for the bottom line issue. As aforementioned the current cruisers get between 6-10 MPG, and that’s on a good day with a tuned car. Now for comparison a Toyota Prius Police Cruiser will get 60 MPG on the slow inner-city patrol. That is because these cars are actually designed to get better stop and go city driving mileage than highway mileage. That about 10 times savings on fuel. With current wholesale fuel cost inching up to the $3.00/G mark, one doesn’t have to be an economist to realize how many TAX dollars can be saved by making the switch but a few million here or there can add up to a nice piece of change.
If we look at the amount of pollution that the cities fleet of cars dumps into the city air, we can see by taking this initiative, Chicago and the planet will have hundreds of thousands of pounds less air pollution then it has now just from making this small change.
In the overall scope of things, this might not be more then a drop in the bucket in Global Warming, but if say for example, the city mandated that the TAXI fleet went Hybrid, there would be another few hundred thousands of pounds of pollution less in the air that you and I are breathing every day in Chicago. And if we in
What I’m proposing is something that isn’t going to cost a penny more then business as usual but is actually going to save millions of TAX dollars that can be spent much more wisely elsewhere. What it will do however, is make for some very disgruntled companies that have not done what they should have done to responsible members of the human race. Sad to say that these people deserve no sympathy because they are tampering with the very future of the planet and human life on earth itself.
I leave it to you and your conscious’ gentlemen to DO THE RIGHT THING!!!