Drivers Ed for Howard County Police, Citizens

Even police officers sometimes need guidance when it comes to driving safely. 

“Officers drive every day, and that vehicle is dangerous,” Howard County Police Lt. Robert Wagner told members of the Citizens Advisory Council (CAC) last week.

So the police department has implemented a program to give officers a refresher course in manning their nearly two-ton cars. The program is for nine officers at a time, and is available every four years. 

"It isn't perfect," Howard County Police Chief William McMahon said. "But it's something."

A few officers were a bit grumpy when they were told they had to go back to driving school, McMahon said. But, he added, some of those same officers came back to him after training to tell him how helpful it was. 

The department also has a driving simulator at its training facility in Marriottsville, where officers can brush up on their skills without having to take to the streets. Members of the CAC, a group of residents who act as liaisons between their communities and the police department, got a chance to give the simulator a whirl at their Wednesday meeting.

“Most of our collisions aren’t dramatic,” McMahon said. Especially with the new Dodge Chargers that have low seats and small rear windows, accidents tend to be along the lines of backing into cars and poles in a parking lot, or during a three-point turn.

But, he added, six of the last seven officers killed in the line of duty died in traffic accidents.

For drivers in general, with the exception of Prince George’s County and Baltimore City, more people are killed in vehicle collisions in Maryland than in other kinds of what McMahon characterized as violent crimes.

“And that’s what they are,” he said of collisions. Police will continue to have difficulty changing drivers' bad habits “until society stops calling them accidents and starts dealing with what they are—criminal acts,” he said.  

Particularly difficult is reminding all drivers to stay focused despite the technology that people carry with them everywhere, Wagner said. That goes for the general population as well as police officers.

After all, he said, recruits come from the general population. More and more that means for them, having a cell phone.

Texting and talking on a handheld cell phone while driving is illegal in Maryland. There is a law enforcement exception, but Howard County police have their own rules instituted, and they are not granted that exception, McMahon said.

Still, he said, he knows recruits have the same habits as other young adults. “There is a culture change,” he said. People feel a compulsion to answer a phone or a text message as soon as it’s received. “My kids, they’re used to—unless it’s me calling them—they feel the need to answer every call they get immediately.”

To emphasize the potential effects of distracted driving, officers Aug. 17 showed the CAC a video clip sponsored by AT&T that urged people not to text and drive.  

It opened and closed with a Missouri State Trooper who, teary-eyed, recalled an accident in which a young woman was killed when she drove off the road while she tried to respond to a text message.        

“I guarantee you we can remember every single fatal we’ve ever been on,” Pfc. Chris Davis said after the film.

“The circumstances around it. What happened. Their faces. How disfigured they were. It’s one of those things you carry with you for the rest of your life. You never, ever, ever forget it.”