The accompanying photo is half of the LAPD SWAT team during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. We were divided into two sections. As there were 60 operators there were 30 on one side and thirty on the other. These soon became SWAT 1 And SWAT 2. The rivalry started then and there it was good natured but a rivalry nonetheless. We had a T shirt made which depicted a group of SWAT team characters in action. Over the top of the picture was “For a Good Time Call – SWAT Two.” Don’t know what ever happened to my T shirt but it was tongue in cheek and fairly funny.

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Recently we had the pleasure of doing training in France, Italy and Greece. We spent about three weeks there and for most of the trip, we rented a car. This might be the eye opening part of a trip to anyone new to driving through certain parts of Europe. There is driving and then… there is an alternate universe of driving. For instance, there is commuter driving, race car driving, off road driving, test driving and probably many other forms of driving which I’m not even aware of. There is also a rather unique form of driving indigenous to one and only one place on earth.

Italy is a beautiful country. The people are warm and the wine is good. The Mediterranean Sea is an aqua marine blue and the terraced hillsides rising high above the waters are alive with fig, olive, lemon and fruit trees. Italy is also… well… Italy and they have a most peculiar form of driving like no other. It is just shy of a death sport in my opinion. For instance, let’s take the subject of following distances. Most schools of thought ascribe to about one car length of distance for every 10 miles an hour relative to speed which seems perfectly reasonable. Not so for the Italians. Here’s what I figured out over there. At 30 kilometers per hour (roughly 18 mph) the follow distance is approximately 1 foot or 12 inches. No kidding. At 60 klm per hour (37 mph) the follow distance greatly expands to approximately 2 feet. At 120 klm per hour (74.5 mph) the distance expands dramatically to approximately 3 feet – which means the vehicle following you can’t possibly observe your brake lights. In other words… at 120 kilometers per hour never, ever brake in Italy. But this is only the beginning.

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I recently attended an academy class to observe what was being taught these days. There is an old adage that when the police look young, you are getting up there in age.

Some of these recruits inspired confidence while others did not. Four or five of their numbers had already been fired/dismissed from the class within the first two weeks. One wonders about the initial selection process. It seems to me that my academy class was bit more squared away. We all had life experience, many of us had degrees from Universities and many had military experience. We had long since been separated from our parents and had to figure life out on our own. There is some real benefit to this sort of maturation process.

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