During a raid Friday morning on a top-floor apartment of a public housing project in London’s Notting Hill neighborhood, a special weapons and tactics team captured Muktar Said Ibrahim, who a fellow suspect told police was the leader of the four would-be bombers.
If you saw this SWAT team on TV, they were piling out of a BMW X5 on their way into action.
First, the British Police cars seem to be bought by the force that’s using them, which generally splits down into regions, of which there must be as many as the US has states.
Each force then seems to be split into two groups, the specialist traffic patrols and the more local town cars. The high mileage traffic cars (Volvo wagons, BMW 5 series, Opel Omega, etc.) spend a lot of hours on freeways, but what you’re seeing in the TV pictures are whatever the ‘Met’ decided to buy to use around London.
____________________________________I have incidentally seen at least one Lexus amongst the high mileage cars, but I guess the individual forces believe they get more value from things like the Volvo wagons with Turbo charger – they’re fast enough to catch most cars on the road, but can carry emergency gear etc. Incidentally, the standard of training for these pursuit drivers is EXTREMELY high, as it is in other European countries such as the Netherlands I believe.
State highway patrols aside, most American police departments seem to be making their way downhill from the Mexican-built LTD’s to the crappy [and cheap] Chevy Malibu. Do they care about performance and durability? Or can’t they hire and train anyone capable of driving a hot car?
