Big Kids and Big Toys

You couldn’t help but notice that, in the local print media over the last week, the Kissimmee Police Department has been announcing their acquisition of two 3-wheel traffic enforcement vehicles (motor-tricycles?). Complete with pictures!

We’ve seen some of these vehicles cruising down the 192 strip. For those on our staff who aren’t motorcyclists, we thought, “gee, that might be a nice high-mileage adult vehicle/toy, if we had the money.” Kind of like a Honda Gold Wing.

But in a time when the City Commission and city management squeal at every opportunity about how budgets are being cut and there are no funds available for anything, we wonder about the purchase of what are admittedly not standard police patrol vehicles.

We were surprised to learn that the purchase price of these vehicles hovers at the $16,000 range, before emergency equipment and markings (according to the papers). This seems to put these bikes within a couple thousand dollars of a fleet-purchased Ford Crown Victoria (again, before emergency equipment and markings). But, we assume that these bikes will not be any officer’s primary mode of transport, rather, available for shared use for special events and those special traffic details.

Certainly they seem safer than a two-wheel motorcycle, and from the pictures, have lots more opportunities for more blinky lights. But the accompanying articles note that the police department will continue to operate their Harley-Davidson patrol motorcycles as well. And we wonder whether these three-wheel things will have the ability to move in traffic the way motorcycles do, which is one of the supposed strengths of police motorcycles.

So, the police department is buying special equipment that costs almost as much as a patrol car, but won’t be used as much. Probably safer than a motorcycle, but not replacing motorcycles. In these trying financial times, we would have loved to have seen the last line of the press release read:

“The manufacturer, in exchange for KPD’s feedback on how these vehicles perform as police vehicles, is leasing them to the police department for $1 per year.”

or:

“Officers assigned to these vehicles will use them as their primary patrol vehicle, in an effort to increase visibility and reduce fuel costs. When those officers need a standard squad car, they will use an older shared car from the city fleet.”