A recent post by JIM asking about aircraft survival kits reminded me of this for some reason:

Many years ago (circa 1970) my mother dragged me to a Home and Garden show at McCormick Place in Chicago (was NOT my idea, dad flat out refused and sis made herself scarce). Anyway, the Illinois State Police had a display there and part of it was a cruiser with a plexiglass trunk lid to show off all the stuff they carry. I was really impressed, this sucker was packed: box o' flares, stretcher, gonzo first aid kit, food, water, tools, etc., etc. The apparent reasoning was: "Well, we're always first on the scene when things go bad, might as well be prepared even if we don't how to use some of this stuff. Hopefully there'll be someone around that will."

Now I'm pretty sure that's no longer the case (and I kinda' doubt it ever was), the question is: What is typical trunk carry in cruisers these days (state, county, local, whatever)?

One of my good friends who is a detective keeps his hockey gear in his unmarked ;-)

My dad told me that when he was a Texas Highway Patroman for a while in his youth, he had his fishin' gear in the trunk! (As long as my dad was alive, no one in the family ever had to buy fish at the store...I surely do miss him!)

It kindsorta depends on the agency, the location, and the vehicle. When I was a highway cop working the L.A. freeways, in addition to our personal stuff, hats and helmets, we always had at least three boxes of 30 minute flares, tops cut off, and all of the end caps already swapped around, so that we could flare off three lanes of a frwy as fast as possible. Didn't need much in the way of first aid supplies, the fire dept and ambulance usually beat us there anyway. Spare tire, 4-way lug wrench, jumper cables, and the main part of the company radio stuck back there. Fire extinguisher.

When I transferred out to the boonies, we had not quite as many flares (I-5 only has two lanes in each direction there, but you might have to keep a flare pattern going much longer), I became an EMT and had a pretty well stocked (and bulky) kit, a shovel, wire and staples (my idea) for patching holes in a fence to keep the critters in, and half a dozen traffic cones. One gallon cowboy canteen. Radios got bigger, more parts in the trunk. Newer bigger fire extinguisher.

Then we got Ford Mustangs, which had a much smaller trunk. No cones, fewer flares, GI E-tool (mine) instead of a full sized shovel, EMT kit now in the back seat. Then we got Chevy Cameros. Look and sound really cool, accelerate like being launched off the nose of a carrier, NO trunk at all. Blow-up spare, one case of flares if you were lucky, jumpers, 4-way, EMT kit, your gear, fire extinguisher, and of course those radios, all crammed behind the back seat, on the back seat, on the back floorboards (what little space was there).

In addiiton to all this, I had a sample case kind of thing with clipboards, extra forms, spare loaded mags in GI mag pouches, spare shotgun ammo, when we got rifles spare 30 round 5.56 mags in GI pouches, half a dozen pair of spare cuff, flexcuffs, 100 ft tape, the list goes on and on...

My best friend was the sniper on the sheriff's SWAT team, he carried flares (we gave 'em to him), shovel, jumpers, fire extinguisher, a parachute bag with all his SWAT gear in it, two hard cases with his sniper rifle in one, and a Colt H-BAR in the other, plus little goodies to make his life as a sniper more comfortable (Thermarest pad, food, water, blackwidow spider spray, I don't know what all).

As you can probably guess, it takes quite a bit of time just to carry your personal gear out and get it stored, plus check to see that all of the issue stuff is actually there...

"depends on the agency, the location, and the vehicle." That explains it best. I asked once if the officed had a wrench in his truck as the idler puller bolt I forgotten to tighten backed out and threw my fan belt off. He dug though a messy truck and couldn't find oue so I ended up tightening it every few miles with a no name multi tool.
Don't count on them having anything you might need because when you need it they probably won't have it.
Thats why we carry all our stuff. I made a small toolkit for my truck after that. I bought a "wrench roll" which is a piece of fabric with a bunch of pockets sewn into it and filled it with tools I could get on sale at sears and keep it behind the seat among the rest of my gear.

I had a little tool kit I made up and carried also, but you have to be real carefull loaning it to stranded motorists.

#1, when you get a call and have to leave, they don't understand it when you want to take your tools, bought out of your own pocket, and leave before they are done trying to do whatever it is they are doing, and

#2, California being the home of more attorneys than the rest of the world combined (give or take a few), you've gotta worry about this guy, who doesn't know enough to bring his own tools, using yours to try to fix that can't be fixed, slipping and barking his knuckles, then wanting to sue you and the department for giving him to means to hurt himself...

Well that was pretty darn nice of you...

I usually carry enough tools and other stuff to pratically do a roadside engine rebuild, but I did have to impose on an officer recently. Went for a short road trip with a buddy in his truck , and he's one of these people that figures if he has his wallett, keys, and cellphone, he's ready for anything. So he stops for gas and we both get out, and I accidently hit the electric lock button just as I closed the door. He's already out and the keys are in the ignition. No spare key, no tools.

I noticed when we were pulling in that there was a State Highway Patrol car in the parking lot of the this truck stop that had a small restaurant. I figured "Aha! Those guys carry slim jims." Walked inside and found the officer having a cup of coffee with a couple other guys. He's got his back to the wall and watches me walk towards up with this look on his face like "Oh... This is going to be interesting". Anyway, no lockout tools, but he did get the local constabulary on the phone and they were nice enough to come out and get the door open for us.

as someone said - probably depends on the car and local. I know that during the NYC balckout, when I was using my personal truck to help with the Red Cross, I came back to my truck from the ERV and found 1/2 case of 30 minute road flares sitting in the bed - I guess the PD was replacing the ones I burned...

Of course one of THESE trucks could show up

http://www.extrication.com/esutrk.jpg

Holy crap! Yeah, that'll do the job... Any job.

actually, they have replaced them with LARGER trucks - and have a BUNCH of smaller tradesman pickup type trucks. My neighbor (now retired) was an ESU cop.

You know their motto? When a person gets in trouble, they call a cop, when a cop gets in trouble, they call ESU

BTW ESU is NYC's equivilent to SWAT

BTW they have more than a smal rivalry with these guys

http://www.rescue5fdny.com/

(I think there are 5 of each - FDNY and NYPD, plus there are Corrections, and the like, plus the command trucks from OEM, as well as each departments command trucks - I'ss see if I can dig up photos from a terrorist drill a couple of years back - 500+ pieces of equipment in one place - and remember, the city still had to run..

Well, I know I'd enjoy taking a look at whatever photos you care to post. Probably a lot of other people would too.

Holy moly, that is pretty impressive. But I couldn't help to think: some poor rookie bastard probably had to put all that sh*t back in that truck... <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Must have taken a while.

J

According to Urban Legend all patrol cars carry a case of Coca-Cola to clean up blood spills ! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

How could I forget this...when we first became EMT's (only 400 in the entire state of CA), they gave us what they called "Mountain Rescue" training, and made us carry a bright orange bag in the trunk with 100 ft of rappeling rope, harness,'biners, slings, all kinds of stuff. Just what you need in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley, where there are no mountains, or even molehills...

Its funny how some places have the $ and gear while others don't. I used to install dispatch systems, the 911 ANI/ALI systems, CAD systems, etc so I've been to a lot of places. Southern Ohio there are two counties side by side and countly level both built new dispatch centers around the same time with the e911 funding. Gallia county built a nice two story building, both floors divided in half down the middle. Upper floor one side was the offices, other side the dispatch room, bottom floor under that room was the equipment room and the other half was empty space where they could setup anything they needed with folding tables and chairs. They had two heating and cooling systems, one for each half of the building and if one failed they could open the doors and one system could heat or cool the whole building. They had a secondary phone system paralleling the first so if the first died they would just switch to the second and pull the secondary phones out from under the desks. They had dual power feeds, one from OH and one from KY so failure of one they would just run from the other and a big generator outisde with a gas station sized tank underground.
Then the county next to them the dispatch center was built in Loudenville. It was along the main street in town in two old houses that were close enough together they joined them as one. I had to run wiriing in the basement of those old houses through the tangled mess that had been there for years and the houses were so old the foundation was big rocks stacked up, no cement or morter or anything. Their police cheif used his own personal vehicle, an old truck and Gallias police chief had a department proviced Ford Bronco decked out with all kinds of gear.
But it shows that you can't rely on anyone but yourself, you could get lucky and be in a place which has all the good toys or you could be in a place which doesn;t have anything and when you call because your stranded they call the nearest farmer and he arrives on his old tractor hours later to help.

Well, I could not find any really good overview photos - you don't seem much more than 10-20 rigs in any of them, and none of the interesting stuff (unless you want to loook at a Salvation Army Canteen truck, and/or a bunch over overweight hams - particularly me)

That truck is awesome. How about THAT for a bug out vehicle? <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Where I live, if you break down on an interstate, the Illinois State Police call a tow truck prety much immediately. If you can't get your car moving within just a minute or so of them checking your drivers license and registration and insurance, you're pretty much stuck with the bill unless you have already called a tow. They will verify that you have called, too. My brother was trailing me in a pickup with two tanks. The first tank ran dry and he didn't know to switch tanks, so the truck died at the exit we needed to take. I was turning around and coming back (about a 20 min. process on the interstate, made into 30 min. by the time I realized he wasn't following) and by the time I figured out what had happened, the tow truck had already picked him up. I drove up to the tow truck backing up to the pickup. A cell phone or even GRMS/FRS (or me thinking of telling my brother about the tanks in the first place) would have saved us $75. That was maybe 8-10 years ago, so policy may have changed.

All of the cops I know, a city cop, county cop and state trooper, all carry tons of stuff in their trunks.

what's interesting is - last night, I'm waiting to pick up Chinese take out, and 2 ESU officers walk in - yep, a truck just like that one was out front. Dinner run for Truck E10

Having run with both of them a number of times (former NYC Medic) I can tell you that the ESU Motto is:Anything, Anywhere, Anytime, above or below the water. (That's what their shirts say)

You are right though....when you have a problem you call 911. when the police have a problem they call ESU! And yes there is a great rivalry going on.....I will say this though.....you can get 2 back boarded patients INSIDE of Rescue 5. I've done it. You should have seen the ER nurses faces when we pulled up in that thing!!!! (Long Story behind that call......)

There was a series on TV in the late 80's called "True Blue". It revolved around the officers in one of the ESU TRUCK 1.

TRUE BLUE - synopsis at tv.com

Article on production of TRUE BLUE

Got to see 2 trucks, and 3 RPUs working this morning - well, didn't see them working - but...

There was evidently a "Man Under" on the IRT line at 59th - service shut both ways from 42-96. Took the C up to 59, and had to walk past the rigs to walk to work (Man was THAT snarling traffic all over the upper West Side - all me heartless - scrape up the meat, get the trains running)