Sheriff’s Office gets 4X4
You may have noticed in the past couple of weeks some new Sheriff’s office patrol vehicles. The Sheriff’s office has finally been able to replace 2 of the Dodge Charger patrol cars with a good looking special service package Dodge Ram 1/2 pickup.
The Yuma County Sheriff’s office has never had patrol four-wheel-drive capability, which is very uncommon in today’s law enforcement. In fact, before these vehicles made their way into the fleet, the Yuma County Sheriff’s office and the Pueblo Police Department were the only law enforcement agencies in the entire state that didn’t have at least one four-wheel-drive vehicle in their patrol fleet, while a good portion of Sheriff’s offices have moved to nothing but four-wheel-drive vehicles. Sheriff Day’s intention is to, hopefully sooner than later end up with at least half of the patrol fleet possessing four-wheel-drive capability.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this change. Certainly some speed is given up in a transition from a high performance sedan to a full size pickup, but the four-wheel-drive capability and the heavier built nature of a pickup are certainly factors that fit in well to the rural setting of Yuma County.
“While it’s difficult to intentionally give up some top-end speed by moving to patrol pickups, we must factor in the probability of incidence where four-wheel-drive capability is needed for emergency response in Yuma County compared to the probability of incidence of speed being useful or even necessary when making a decision about what vehicles are most prudent in a law enforcement fleet.”
One of the unintended benefits of presenting these vehicles to the Yuma County commissioners earlier this year was that they were among the most inexpensive patrol vehicles offered through the state bid process. In fact, this year, these Dodge Ram pickups were a full $6000 cheaper than the new Dodge Chargers would have been.
“We are excited and relieved to finally be able to have this four-wheel-drive capability on patrol now. It has been quite an effort to get them added to patrol, and I’m hopeful that they hold up to the rigors of patrol needs in rural Yuma County better than the sedans have.”