In reply to ProDarwin:
I could do the police stories all day. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for the profession, but some of these guys give the rest of their peers a bad name.
One night while working at the hospital, I struck up a conversation with a bored deputy sheriff. We started talking about cars, and I mentioned doing a few auto-x events and track days, and how I felt it made me a better driver on the street as well.
He starts telling me about the day(?!?) of driver training he got in the academy, and the two days of "special" police training he had at the local track, and now he was ready for anything.
Now bear in mind, this guy is a K9 cop, with a shiny new Ford Explorer at the time. He begins to tell me how he's been trained for high-speed pursuit, and him driving 140mph in his patrol vehicle was like me doing 70 in my car.
I couldn't resist saying that, "You DO realize you're still subject to the laws of physics....right?" He got pissy, and stomped off.
I also interned for a local police dept. for school, and they had me out a lot with officers who were just running traffic detail.
One day we're running radar, and a nice new Audi S4 comes through doing 45 in a 25. To be fair, not too far up the road the road goes to 45 and then 55, and he waited until after the crosswalk at the old folks' home to accelerate.
So we pull out in pursuit about a half-mile back, and the officer floors it.
After getting the guy stopped, I decided to ask, "So wait, we pulled this guy over because doing 20 over is unsafe, right?
"Yeah."
"But us doing nearly 100mph on a 55mph road to catch him, in this beat-to-hell Crown Vic is safer?"
"Uh..."
"Not to mention, that's a fairly high-performance car. He's got a way better chance of slowing or avoiding an obstacle in that, than we do in this."
"Hang on."
He issued the guy a warning.