John Walsh: Takin’ It To The Streets

AMW host John Walsh trains with the FBI in Quantico, VA

I’ve just had some first-hand, close-up exposure to what FBI agents-in-training have to go through. And let me tell you - I loved every minute of it! This month marks the Bureau’s 100th anniversary, and to help celebrate the occasion, I took the AMW crew to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia to shoot a special episode of our show. With our cameras rolling, the FBI’s top trainers let me try my hand at some of what they put agents through. I spent time at the firearms range, moved in on a realistically staged bank robbery with an FBI SWAT squad and even got to rappel down the side of a building in an exercise with the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team - one of the most elite counter-terrorism units in the world.

But the most “hands on” experience of the day came when we went to the Academy’s TEVOC facility. TEVOC stands for Tactical Emergency Vehicle Operations Center. It’s the FBI’s driving school, where agents are taught how to think quick and react fast behind the wheel. It’s an incredibly important part of their training, because car accidents are right up there with shootings on the list of things that kill law enforcement officers.

Tim Moles, the FBI’s head driving instructor, put me into a “skid car.” It’s a normal car, with one very big exception. It sits on a dolly that has four small wheels, in addition to the car’s regular tires. At any moment, the instructor can flip those wheels sideways, sending the car into a skid. Tim trains drivers - and showed me - how to safely get out of the skid. What he teaches is helpful information for anyone who drives, so I want to share it with you. Tim told me that the secret of dealing with skids is to keep your eye - and your steering wheel - trained on where you WANT to be going, not the direction the car is actually moving.

Tim put me through another exercise that has practical applications for everyday drivers. On TEVOC’s Accident Avoidance Course, you drive toward a traffic signal that has a green light in two adjacent lanes. When you reach 45 miles-an-hour, one of the lights turns red, and you have to move into the correct lane without knocking over any of the orange cones lining the way. Even though it sounds like it would be easy, Tim told me that many people have trouble with it at first. Most people’s first instinct when something happens right in front of them on the road is to slam on the brakes. But that’s a recipe for disaster; you can lose control of your car and wind up hitting what you’re trying to avoid. The Accident Avoidance Course trains drivers to react with their steering wheel, not their brakes. I did really well on the course, and it was a lot of fun. So much so, that when AMW’s producers told me they had what they needed for the show, I didn’t want to stop - and I didn’t! I went through the course three or four more times, and didn’t knock over a single cone.

We’ve posted some of the FBI instructors’ driving tips, and other safety information you can use on the road, here at the AMW Safety Center. Please take a moment to check out those tips, they could save a life, and use the information to keep your family safe as you travel this summer, and all year long.

-John