Skid School Special Car Lets Cadets, Cops Hone Driving Skills

Duane Brison was out of control.

His hands flashed over the steering wheel as the police car skidded, swerved and spun in a circle - tires screeching the whole way.

“It’s like I’m driving on a sheet of ice,” he said.

But he wasn’t. He was driving a vehicle called a Skidcar.

Brison is one of almost 100 North Idaho law enforcement students and police officers who will learn how to drive in dangerous conditions by using this new police training tool.

The Skidcar is a standard police car fitted with a special hydraulically controlled undercarriage.

As the student drives the car, an instructor sitting in the passenger seat uses a hand-held computer to ease the car’s front and rear tires off the ground to varying degrees.

This gives the wheels less traction, said Kootenai sheriff’s Sgt. Tim Parker, one of the instructors.

Lifting the front wheels slightly off the ground simulates a front wheel skid as if taking a turn too fast. Lifting the back wheels simulates fishtailing on a patch of ice. Lifting both the front and back simulates driving more than 100 mph.

“It shows you high speed driving techniques at slow speeds,” instructor Deputy Andy Boyle said. explaining that the students usually don’t drive faster than 20 mph.

“It’s very realistic,” Brison said Wednesday, as he wheeled the car through orange cones marking off a figure eight obstacle course in a Post Falls parking lot.

Boyle hopes the training will prevent officers from getting in accidents and teach them better pursuit skills.

This type of training is far safer than the old techniques in which officers practiced driving on a patch of road covered with soap or water. Cars could easily flip or wreck.

“In this car we can spin out all day long and we won’t get hurt,” Parker said.

There are only 10 Skidcars throughout the United States.

The Idaho Peace Officers Standards and Training academy bought two about a year ago, director Michael Becar said. The car is usually used to train students at the academy but is currently making a three-week tour around Idaho to train officers already on the streets.

The car will be in Coeur d’Alene this week and then Lewiston and Pocatello.

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