
The Art of the Motorcade - prismatic
https://www.1843magazine.com/dispatches/the-daily/the-art-of-the-escort
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jamessb
>British police do not push through congestion with parping, wailing sirens.
Instead they somehow unzip it, opening and closing a rolling, convoy-sized gap
in the traffic. The clever work is performed by a swarm of police motorcycles,
which zoom ahead, blue lights flashing, to halt traffic at the next two or
three junctions. Sometimes they create temporary chicanes so that the convoy
can cross to the wrong side of the road for a few hundred yards. (Passing
through north London, I felt British pride as pedestrians asked motorcycle
officers just who we thought we were – a wholly reasonable question. I felt a
stab of embarrassment as we hit the M11 motorway and headed at speed up the
hard shoulder, leaving stationary commuters to fume in our wake.) In the
absence of sirens the loudest noise is the buzz of motorcycles catching back
up with the convoy then overtaking it at speed, on their way to close off new
junctions ahead.

There's an interesting short documentary about the Metropolitan Police Special
Escort Group:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5TkSE_5GsE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5TkSE_5GsE)

~~~
bryondowd
This sort of makes me wonder about how driverless cars could be designed to
handle this sort of situation. Or any situation where an authorized human is
temporarily modifying traffic rules using gestures and verbal communication.
Especially in edge cases where they might be giving non-trivial instructions
to individual cars.

~~~
gnud
Well, driverless cars will have to deal with unauthorized humans doing all
sorts of weird stuff in traffic.

I think this is a smaller problem.

~~~
DanBC
These will be authorised humans, and thus will probably have some kind of
(hopefully cryptographicly protected) id to tell the cars that this is an
instruction it probably wants to obey.

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pessimizer
So they will take OTA instructions through a backdoor?

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nickff
More like a front door; one of the biggest problems with backdoors is that
they are not supposed to allow the 'owner' to know what is going on.

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sanjeetsuhag
This is a great read. Going off a tangent to this, if anybody is looking for a
breakdown of the US Presidential motorcade, Tyler Rogoway does a great job in
this article :

[http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/4518/the-fascinating-
an...](http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/4518/the-fascinating-anatomy-of-
the-presidential-motorcade)

~~~
lostboys67
There is a memoir of a Security Service (Mi5) operator Soldier Spy and he goes
into how they where trained to drive when tailing people.

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nickt
The book is called "Soldier Spy" [1], by "Tom Marcus". He was on the Jeremy
Vine show last week, his interview is worth a listen (starts at 33:30).

[1] [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32330232-soldier-
spy](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32330232-soldier-spy) [2]
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b085hbwn#play](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b085hbwn#play)

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21
Cool video of the Japan prime minister motorcade merging into traffic -
[https://i.imgur.com/Fz11DuI.gifv](https://i.imgur.com/Fz11DuI.gifv)

And a parody of motorcade abuse in an African country -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbDgJN-j-
PM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbDgJN-j-PM)

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sandworm101
I dont think anyone really debates the need for such escorts, the prez needs
to get to the airport securely. But perhaps due to my locatuon ive witnessed
many ridiculous uses.

Training. A good number of these police escorts are training senarios. Police
need to train, but the use of force to detain members of the public during
training is a step too far imho.

Some VIPs arent very vip in my book. After concerts downtown, in the traffic
chaos, it is not unussual to see police escort performers to the airport or
hotel. Taylor Swift doesnt qualify as vip imho.

Questionable destinations. Taking someone out to lunch doesnt need the police
convoy. Send for take out. Dont block a bridge or manhandle me off my
motorcycle just because a visiting vip feels like italian tonight. Let the
food come to him.

~~~
joezydeco
Do stars really hang around after a concert is over?

From documentaries I've seen, they're on the bus and on the road before the
applause is over. All the meet-and-greet is done before the concert.

~~~
sandworm101
In the case of one taylor swift concert last year, it was also fireworks
night. The streets were packed before she ended. Stars can do what they want.
Most leave asap, but i have heard of some overnighting at tge venue, or
traveling to the next show with the crew. Helicopters are also an option,
ussualy after the parking lot empties.

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kalleboo
Motorcades also put on out an air of legitimacy, even when they're completely
fake [https://youtu.be/N3zKuLgH_l8](https://youtu.be/N3zKuLgH_l8)

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DanBC
Here's a Youtube video showing police motorcycle escort of an ambulance.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXTDnYIHQBE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXTDnYIHQBE)

It's interesting to see how much direction they need to give to drivers -
"Don't slow down here, keep driving"; "stop there until we've gone through".

~~~
sandworm101
Do ambulances and fire trucks need police escorts? I would think it could do
more harm than good. I've driven through several red lights to give way, but
if there was a cop in sight i'd probably hesitate. Seeing a cop, but perhaps
not the ambulance, would trigger drivers to pull over thinking they were
getting a ticket. In my area ambulances and fire trucks have no issues.
Everyone gives way, even when they dont have lights on.

~~~
knz
My wife had an ambulance ride with a police escort once. A 20 minute drive
turned into about 8 minutes. Minutes and seconds saved can make a difference
sometimes.

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cafard
Living and working in Washington, DC, I have thought for some years that a new
administration brings in a increase in the number of motorcades, until the
novelty wears off. I am fortunate to live within walking distance of work
(extended: about three miles), and wouldn't be surprised to find myself
walking home more this spring.

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flavor8
Rumour has it that Trump's planning to spend significant time in NYC, so it
may turn out that there won't be as many as you fear. Trump Tower is being
reglazed with bullet proof glass.

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amalag
The Indian and Japanese versions were the same, but in India they pretended to
have a motorcade.

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davidw
Pordonone should be Pordenone. Interesting read, in any case.

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irrational
This is not the kind of escort I thought I would be reading about.

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dang
That was clearly a bit of cheekiness by the Economist that doesn't translate
particularly well to the front page here, so we did a s/escort/motorcade/.

