In the Blink of An Eye

Police Driving is a decision-making process that requires the driver to manage time and distance, and anything that slows that process down can and often does become an emergency.  Whether driving on routine patrol, pursuit or while off duty with your family understanding the basic principles of managing time and distance is lifesaving knowledge.

Our frame of reference for measuring time and distance is the speedometer which supplies information in units of miles and hours – MPH. The driver does not have an hour or a mile to make life-saving decisions; in a vehicle emergency, Miles Per Hour is an irrelevant unit of measurement.

An Explanation

To make sense of a vehicle emergency the driver needs to convert MPH to Feet Per. Second (FPS). Traveling at 40 MPH the driver is moving at the rate of 58.8 Feet Per Second (FPS). Converting MPH to FPS requires some elementary grade arithmetic; you need to multiply the MPH number by 1.47.  Driving at30 MPH the vehicle is moving through space at 44.1 Feet/Second,( 30 MPH times 1.47) at 60 MPH the vehicle is moving 88.2 Feet/Second ( 60 MPH times 1.47).

DISTANCE

At 20 mph the driver travels 29.4 ft. /sec

At 30 mph the driver travels 44.1 ft./sec

At 40 mph the driver travels 58.8 ft./sec

At 50 mph the driver travels 78.5 ft./sec

At 60 mph the driver travels 88.2 ft./sec

As mentioned above any delay in the decision-making process adds exponentially to a level of difficulty needed to survive the event, not delays measured in seconds but delays measured in tenths of seconds. As an example; at 30 mph, in .2 seconds, the driver travels 8.8 feet, at 60 MPH in .2 seconds the driver would travel 17.6 feet.

Why two-tenths of a second? Because that is how much time it takes to blink your eyes. When you are driving 60 mph, literally in a blink of an eye, you move 17.6 feet. Any training that can speed up the decision-making process – by as little as a blink of an eye dramatically increase the chances of surviving the emergency.