I recently attended a accident scene (heard on fire dispatch) involving a local police vehicle. I happened to be right around the corner so walked over to see what there was to see. For the record I do not condone going to any type of call heard on a scanner, listen all you want but dont go there. Anyway back to the story. The police vehicle had just high sided himself in a snow bank. There was no damage and no injury aside to the officers pride. I continued past the scene and left but I did hear the fire dept talking on the radio say that the officer had been trying to read a dispatch call on the terminal and had wandered out of the lane.
I am not going to open the distracted driver issue since in reality the rules are the rules and they are going to be what they are regardless of what I or any one thinks.
The item I want to bring to the front is that many services like the OPP in Ontario are using in car terminals to dispatch calls and information. This is a great time saver for the dispatchers but I think it is going to eventually be a headache or worse a disaster for the frontline officers.
Personally I think that this is a major officer safety issue. My reasons are as follows
- the officer needs to stop and read the message or try and read it while driving not that easy in traffic or on a highway at highway speeds this slows response.
- in most systems the calls are sent to just the single car this means only the dispatcher knows where the car is going and what he is doing. yes other cars can sometimes look up active calls but often the system is set to flag these look ups.
- this type of dispatching puts the officer out there by himself (very dangerous). Under normal radio dispatching every one hears the call and often a closer car will jump in and take the call. if not every car knows where the officer is going and what he is doing. This results in other nearby cars often doing a 'flyby' just to support the officer and to verify all is ok. Also what is lost is another car or officer looses the opportunity of providing other important information like "I was there last week and ...." or "keep an eye out for the neighbor he was/is...." or even "thats so and so they are...."
- officers often loose track of what is happening in their division or town because they dont hear whats happening locall unless they talk to a fellow officer and this could be at the end of the shift hours later. its little hep finding out that a co-worker was looking for John doe and you saw him not more than an hour ago and could have stopper or arrested him then if you had known.
- have you ever tried to do a pursuit or foot chase using a terminal. It dosnt work well
The best solution I have seen is all calls are voiced over the radio EG Car 123 there is a domestic at 321 House St, Details are in the call text With many forces being encrypted there is very little reason for even the details to be sent only to the one car.
I am not going to open the distracted driver issue since in reality the rules are the rules and they are going to be what they are regardless of what I or any one thinks.
The item I want to bring to the front is that many services like the OPP in Ontario are using in car terminals to dispatch calls and information. This is a great time saver for the dispatchers but I think it is going to eventually be a headache or worse a disaster for the frontline officers.
Personally I think that this is a major officer safety issue. My reasons are as follows
- the officer needs to stop and read the message or try and read it while driving not that easy in traffic or on a highway at highway speeds this slows response.
- in most systems the calls are sent to just the single car this means only the dispatcher knows where the car is going and what he is doing. yes other cars can sometimes look up active calls but often the system is set to flag these look ups.
- this type of dispatching puts the officer out there by himself (very dangerous). Under normal radio dispatching every one hears the call and often a closer car will jump in and take the call. if not every car knows where the officer is going and what he is doing. This results in other nearby cars often doing a 'flyby' just to support the officer and to verify all is ok. Also what is lost is another car or officer looses the opportunity of providing other important information like "I was there last week and ...." or "keep an eye out for the neighbor he was/is...." or even "thats so and so they are...."
- officers often loose track of what is happening in their division or town because they dont hear whats happening locall unless they talk to a fellow officer and this could be at the end of the shift hours later. its little hep finding out that a co-worker was looking for John doe and you saw him not more than an hour ago and could have stopper or arrested him then if you had known.
- have you ever tried to do a pursuit or foot chase using a terminal. It dosnt work well
The best solution I have seen is all calls are voiced over the radio EG Car 123 there is a domestic at 321 House St, Details are in the call text With many forces being encrypted there is very little reason for even the details to be sent only to the one car.
Last edited:
