Notes From the Hard Shoulder - James May [68]
The Scottish approach to the issue, like some aspects of Scottish law, is slightly different from the English one but is still based around intensive driver training. It's obvious that Martin and his men regard the driving school at Scotland's Tulliallen Police College as quite simply the best in the world. But where some English traffic cops are taught specific pursuit driving skills, the Scots are not. The point is that police driving should not be a specialism, but rather just driving to a highly advanced standard. This is critical to Martin's safety argument. 'We believe there's no need to teach pursuit driving; if you can teach someone to drive safely at speed, that should be enough.'
The seriousness of Glasgow's car-crime problem led, in 1994, to the formation of Strathclyde's special Stolen Vehicle Squad, a collaboration between the traffic and dog departments and the outfit we are to join for a Monday night shift. The dog is a crucial but last-resort member of the team: in the event of a 'bale out' – when the thief abandons the car and legs it – then the dog can be called in to bring him down. One member of each shift is always a specialist dog-handler, a man who lives with the dog at home and work and will probably adopt it as a pet at the end of its working life. It can be hard on the dog – last year one was stabbed by a desperate fugitive.
Rivalling the dogs as stars of the SVS roadshow are two fully marked-up Volvo T5 estates. They are standard cars but for the usual police paraphernalia: a dog pen that fills half the load bay and extends into the nearside rear seat to allow a quick exit through the door, and uprated pads and discs sourced from 'a racing outfit'. The Volvos were chosen for reasons of acceleration, braking and handling that allow it to keep touch with a recklessly driven lesser car without taking risks at junctions, red lights and any other hazards at which a police driver must slow down.
The two Volvos usually work in conjunction with a fully equipped but unmarked car that can scout unobtrusively and then call in the marked cars if necessary. The T5s are famous among the locals. If absolutely necessary, a police helicopter can also be called into action.
The squad is successful. 'Car crime is going down,' says Martin. Last year the outfit made 348 arrests and recovered stolen vehicles worth half a million pounds. The shift starts at 19.00 hours.
The rear seat of a police car. A stiff-shirted, slightly intimidating figure up front, and the constant crackle of radio that is the leitmotif of law enforcement. I am in tonight's unmarked car, Rover 800 callsign Tango Mike Eight, with PC Malcolmson.
By 19.30 reports come through of a recklessly driven silver Honda, registration unknown but possibly stolen, on one of the Possil Park housing estates. The plain car's siren goes on and I am treated to the curious sound of a police car from the inside: strangely muffled, constant, without the doppler effect. We drive briskly through the town – 'making progress', the police would call it. I am forbidden by the terms of my being here to record the speeds reached, but in any case when I ask how fast we're going Malcolmson says 'thirty' without hesitation. He later also warns me to be careful what I say if we become involved in a pursuit – the standard in-car video is now equipped with sound recording, so that the mandatory police driver's commentary can supplement the video evidence in court. 'Very helpful to the jury,' says my driver; not so helpful if I'm screaming blue murder from the back seat.
But the Honda has gone to ground. Back at base we meet up with the two marked cars and Brodie, the German shepherd which, at a word from his master, PC Gordon Harper, would pin me against the wall. 'Otherwise he could go into a schoolyard full of kids and happily play around.' Good dog.
An hour's cruise around in Omega Tango Mike Six introduces me to the Ruchill estate, dilapidated epicentre of Glasgow's car crime and a place where law-breaking