Police officers get to play video games every now and then and get paid for it.
When it comes time to play, it's more like professional practice for these Hall County Sheriff's Office deputies.
Sheriff's employees are wrapping up a third week of driver training by practicing driving scenarios on a simulator.
"Don't hit Fluffy," David Trotter, public safety driving instructor for Local Government Risk Management Services, said with a laugh as a dog ran across the screen during one simulation. "Don't keep your eyes fixated on what you could hit. Look for another escape route. Good job, good job."
Trotter, a certified law enforcement officer, runs the simulator that travels in a van across the state to serve local governments and police departments. Operated by the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia and the Georgia Municipal Association, the training reminds officers how to react during dangerous emergency response situations.
"Simulations are taking the place of training now. The neat thing about it is if a person makes a mistake in here, their mind perceives that it actually happened and won't do it out in the real world," Trotter said. "We can also develop new programs, so if someone has a particular collision, we can train them not to do it again."
The training console looks like an arcade game. Three flat screen televisions act as the front and side windows for the car, with a rearview mirror and two side mirrors included in smaller boxes on the screens. The participant buckles into the chair, uses gas and brake pedals and has a panel of buttons to use the sirens, emergency lights and dispatch radio. On top of the televisions, red and blue lights flash like realistic emergency signals.
"We want them to be able to respond to the situations that happen on the road on a day to day basis," said Sgt. Bonner Burton at the Hall County Sheriff's training center on Allen Creek Road. "Driving is dangerous. You see people talking on the phone and wonder if they're watching and looking. The simulation enhances officers' ability to drive at a safe speed and handle their duties and responsibilities."
Firearms and automobile accidents are the highest liabilities for law enforcement officials and the top killers for officers in the line of duty.
Burton and Strickland pointed out the statistics on The Officer Down Memorial Page, www.odmp.org, which tracks how many law enforcement officers die in the line of duty across the nation and by what causes.
The three Hall County Sheriff's deaths were two by gunfire in the same incident in 1923 and an automobile accident in 2005. The two Gainesville Police Department deaths were by gunfire in 1890 and automobile accident in 1972.
Of the total 609 deaths tracked in Georgia since 1790, 353 were from gunfire and 82 were from automobile accidents. Across the nation, 33 officers have died in car accidents so far this year.
"This is why driver training is one of the most important safety measures we can do with the department," Col. Jeff Strickland said.
All law enforcement officers must take driver safety as a part of their basic training skills, but the simulator offers the hands-on approach they don't get in the classroom. The Hall County office has been on the waiting list for a year.
In one simulation series on Wednesday, Sheriff's deputy David Cobb dodged moving vehicles, passed cars on the road by using his emergency lights and sirens and chased down a burglar who robbed a residence. In the final and toughest simulation, Cobb was driving too fast and hit a car as he chased the burglar.
"What do you want your tombstone to say?" Trotter said after the television screen transformed into a broken windshield. "The tough thing is, this simulates what a car will do, but you can't feel when you're going too fast unless you look down at the speedometer. You don't get the ‘seat of your pants' feel, but maybe someone will invent that soon."