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police cruiser to Prius

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Main Forum' started by ghosteh, Apr 26, 2012.

  1. ghosteh

    ghosteh Member

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    I swear, I'm surrounded by idiots!

    When I drove my old personaly-owned vehicle (3/4 ton Chevy diesel truck), people didn't crowd me or drive like maniacs to get around me. And I usually drove the speed limit or just a hair over.

    When I drive my work vehicle (police vehicle), I could be going 5mph BELOW the posted speed limit and no one will come near me. I have the plauge, apparently.

    When I drive my Prius at 5-10 mph OVER the speed limit, I'll have idiots running right up on my bumper, flooring it to pass, cutting me off, and generally acting like road monkeys. Most of the time they race around me just to hit the brakes for slower traffic ahead, a stop light, or God-knows-what... and inevitably all this lunacy is so they can get in front of me and then turn off at the next road.

    Today this woman in an extended cab Chevy truck was riding my azz (I was going 35 in a 30) and was so desperate to get around me that she pulled into the next lane and then immediately cut back in, forcing me to hit the brakes. I honked & waved my fist, but she ignored me. Traffic was fairly heavy all around, and her aggressive driving got her a car's length advantage for the next 3 miles, when she finally turned off. I swear, if I had been in the cruiser I would have pulled her over and kept her on the side of the road for 20 minutes while I ran every check I could think about!

    People just don't think. They have a sense of invunerability when they are behind the wheel of that SUV, and they drive like they are linebackers. I've pulled many people over who were driving aggressively and their demeanur always changes to one of a 5-year-old with his hand caught in the cookie jar. "What? Oh, I was? Geez, I'm so sorry! I didn't realize. I'm just running a little late today" I pulled over a 20-somthing girl once that I saw cut someone else off, then flip them the bird after they slammed their brakes on and honked. When I talked to her, you would have thought I had stopped a nun on her way to the orphanage! :rolleyes:

    I'm suprised more people don't get shot due to road-rage.

    It's not the Prius's fault. I could be going faster than I would be in my truck or police cruiser and they still see me as an obstruction. I think because it's such a little car, people see it as something they need to race past and "conquer".

    Anyway, there's not much we can do about the idiots who want to drive that way. I'll still keep lighting them up when I can, and shaking my head at them when I'm off-duty. Can't wait until some idiot decides he's going to force me to the side of the road and chew my azz out for not driving 20-30 mph over the limit like is trying to do!
     
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  2. tach18k

    tach18k Member

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    Thats what the Power button is for, I get some moron behind me trying to chnage my radio setting, while doing 10 over the limit. I see him rasing his finger and such. so I just go into power mode, leave him sitting in the dust, they never think this little car has got some power boost. Once they catch up I drive the speed limit, they dont bother after that.
     
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  3. JStrenk

    JStrenk Member

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    I love that button for pulling onto the freeway, I know it has no more power than keeping it floored but the rush is more satisfying. It;'s what sold me on the Prius over the Honda Insite. That was scary to merge on the freeway with.
     
  4. realbug

    realbug New Member

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    I'm having very similar experience since driving my prius. Some drivers do whatever it takes to pass me no matter how fast I drive. Once they pass, they slow down immediately. People tend to judge a car's speed by how the car looks instead of how fast/slow it actually travels. In their eyes, prius = slow no matter it's 5mph under or 10mph over speed limit.
     
  5. massparanoia

    massparanoia Active Member

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    Just put some blue LED strobes in the rear window, you will be all set then.:rockon:
     
  6. spiderman

    spiderman wretched

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    Interesting to get an officer's point of view from the trenches. Thanks!
     
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  7. nymjk

    nymjk Junior Member

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    +1
     
  8. GSW

    GSW PRIUS POWER

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    Sounds to me ghosteh that its time for a stealth undercover police Prius with hidden lights. Light 'em up bud!
     
  9. Codyroo

    Codyroo Senior Member

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    Initially, I thought that was what this thread was about. A decked out Prius Police Vehicle.

    Can you imagine arresting a dually driving lunatic and taking him to jail....in a Prius. Oh the humiliation is palpable.
     
  10. xliderider

    xliderider Senior Member

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    Sad but true, people seem to equate Prius = SLOW in their minds. So they tail my azz, which makes me want to drive slower, plus that view out the rear glass in the hatch makes it look like they're even closer. :rolleyes:
     
  11. ralleia

    ralleia Active Member

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    :rofl:

    Yeah, but the idiots are all around here, too, and I'm not even driving a Prius yet. I am a courteous though fairly aggressive driver and will let people in front of me if it looks like they are in a spot. But then half the time I regret it because they proceed to drive like morons, failing to get around that big dump truck that is pelting us with rocks, or holding highway traffic in a stagnant locked pattern instead of moving relative to other vehicles so that people can get in the right lanes for the upcoming exits and interchanges. DANG do I hate idiot drivers!

    I tried one Priuschatter's snuggle technique on the road today. A car in the adjacent left lane was over the line into my lane. I was in the far right lane and approaching some road cleanup crews that I wanted to give a wide berth to. So instead of giving the encroaching car any room I just snuggled up to him. He got back in his lane. :rockon:
     
  12. Sergio-PL

    Sergio-PL Member

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    It would be shame to be stopped by hidden Police Prius... anyway - Toyota Motor Poland did such experiment in Warsaw. They gave test Plug-In unit for some time to test it in Old Town where almost no other traffic is allowed... Don't know the results but I like the idea.

    I'm not sure if link to pic will work, but in article it's the first photo.

    [​IMG]

    Policja eksperymentuje z radiowozem, którego
     
  13. katiesdad7

    katiesdad7 Member

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    I need to get a "Police Interceptor" badge for the back. :)
     
  14. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    The Prius doesn't have a "power boost" - it's just as slow in Power mode as in Eco mode. The only boost you are getting is in your head, which is why Toyota provided the various modes. It changes the driver's perception of power, not the power of the vehicle.

    Tom
     
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  15. wotcher

    wotcher Member

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    ghosteh - did you upgrade your horN?
     
  16. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    Dang...it's Thursday again already???

    Another week....another "Somebody's picking on my poor little Prius" post.

    I'm in a different situation than the OP. I drive a G3 as a company vehicle, and I have a brace of GMs (and motorcycles) as personal transport, so I have experience with vehicles that are much larger and smaller than our poor little hero car.
    Also....I live in a rather rural area, and other than the occasional sojourn to Mobile or New Orleans, I normally eschew larger towns.
    Having said aaaaaaaaalllll of that, I have to admit that I don't feel any differently in the G3 than I do either in a truck or on a motorcycle.
    Of course it could be that people that live in very urbanized areas are idiots behind the wheel, or there are a greater percentage of these drivers that are running 5 minutes late for work.
    I do not know.
    It's normal I guess when you live shoulder to shoulder with a zillion other folks trying to use the same asphalt to get to work that sometimes feelings are going to get hurt.

    Shake it off.
    They have to feed those big trucks. ;)

    To the OP: There are many reservists that are also LEOs. I’ve served with some of the best of these.
    Winston Churchill once famously opined that “a reservist is twice the citizen” because he/she has both civilian responsibilities and job along with the responsibility to answer the nation’s call to defend it and lay down his/her life."
    IMHO....this applies doubly to people that have your gig.
    Low pay. Crummy hours. The possibility of being micro-managed and analyzed for months to dissect a decision that you had mere seconds to make.
    Oh.....and let's not forget the possibility of being shot down in the streets even though you're almost certainly required to wear a very uncomfortable vest....winter and summer.
    There's about a 99.44-percent chance that you're a good cop.

    If so...Thanks!


    No.
    I live 10 states away from you and I don't need a ticket fixed. :D
     
  17. 32kcolors

    32kcolors Senior Member

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    Question for you: Have you ever driven the 3rd Gen Prius in the various modes for an extended time?

    I'm asking because you keep driving home this technically correct point, but don't really realize or appreciate how responsive the power mode can be. People tend to modulate the gas pedal exactly the same in all the modes so switching to power mode can make the car quite responsive especially if they're used to ECO or normal mode.
     
  18. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    I drove my G3 exclusively in the Eco mode for the first few months of ownership, thence switched to normal when I outgrew my hypermiling phase. Yeah, occasionally I'll mash the "Power" button when I'm in town and I'm doing the light-to-light thing, but it results in exactly 0.00000000 percent extra "power" from the car's motors.
    As Tom (accurately) pointed out, it just remaps your car's throttle response. Yeah...you can "feel" it but the mode is not very accurately named. It's more like a "sprint" mode. You're not putting any additional power on the street, you're just getting it there a little bit more rapidly maybe.
    A Prius detractor might put it as a "Not quite so slow" mode.

    The OP's original post lofted the opinion that the G3 is thought to be a "slow" car. That is what it is really, but I'm thinking that a more accurate assessment might be that Priuses are thought by many to be driven by slower drivers. Given our proclivities to sip gas and make locker room comments about SUV's, there might be a kernel of truth here. There are people out there struggling furiously to perpetuate some very unfortunate Prius stereotypes!!
    Add to this, the Prius is a fairly diminutive car. If you're being followed by a Prius while you're driving a Nissan Titan, and he/she is only a hundred feet behind you at 75-mph, no sweat, right? You might not even see it.
    If the cars are reversed, then the Prius driver might be a little more apprehensive when they look in their rear-view mirror and see nothing but ISSA,
    Maybe they should etch "Large objects in the mirror aren't as close as they appear." on the passenger side mirror.

    Like the "Power" mode, traffic behavior, as well as Prius sluggishness might be more perception than reality. ;)
     
  19. Flying White Dutchman

    Flying White Dutchman Senior Member

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    i hope you keep professional and don't let your prius envy that poeple have of your car influence your work so you have a cop killing road rage suv drivers when you go crazy:D

    on the other hand the environment would benefit from this
    less suv drivers on the road
    less pollution in fuel and big macs that need to be produced or maybe FAT burgers
     
  20. szgabor

    szgabor Active Member

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    This definitely could happen in New York City. There are quite a large number of Prius-es driven by the cops here (also some nissan hybrid as well)