me again.  sorry to keep bombarding you all with questions.  my state has several openings for troopers and i'm interested in applying.  i just wanted to ask if we had any troopers here and what a typical day looks like for them.  thanks in advance.

Eat a few donuts, shoot a few dogs, get flashed by sevral women trying to get out of speeding tickets.

jk guys

ETA I spent all day at the firestation yesterday(going to be a volunteer starting in a few months). All we did was wash and wax the trucks, grilled out for lunch, and shot the breeze for the rest of the afternoon. Not a single call all day!

Trust me, firefighter is the way to go!

With THP a typical day will be spent working wrecks and doing traffic enforcement, they have a criminal investigations unit but it would take you a few years to work your way onto it.

tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051211/COLUMNIST0105/512110358/1099/NEWS

The troopers i know spend a lot of their day at wrecks and handling all the BS complaints in the rinky-dink towns that dont have PD's.

Quoted: tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051211/COLUMNIST0105/512110358/1099/NEWS

i'd heard whispers about some of that- man, big turn off.

Whether true or not, to me the article stinks of bias.

from the article:

"The law dictates, for example, that the state must buy bulletproof vests for Highway Patrol officers. Not the thousands of other cops with dangerous jobs in the state, but the Highway Patrol."

No kidding. Guess what, the state of Virginia buys vests for the Virginia State Police.  All other departments have to buy their own.  What's wrong with that?


Another law dictates that retired Highway Patrolmen get to keep their gun and badge. By legislative dictate.

Wow, that's a shocker.  Many other states, like Virginia,  have provisions for this when an officer retires. So what?

The most interesting law gives detailed instructions on how trooper pay must be calculated.

For most state employees, the process involves waiting around to see if the governor will come up with the meager 2% or 3% pay raise that has become common. A few years ago, the Highway Patrol decided this wasn't good enough for its members.

The troopers took up a collection, said to be $40,000, and hired one of the big name lobbyists working the Legislative Plaza. That worked, as it always seems to do.

Now trooper pay is calculated and raised every year to match the Southeastern average for such jobs, which usually turns out to be much more than the average state employee gets. Teachers, for example, have worked for years to get the Southeastern average benchmark, without success. Any other group of state employees that tried to legislate a separate salary plan would get hammered, probably by the governor.

Ok, maybe the teachers need to take up a collection and hire a lobbyst to have their pay recalculated.  How does that make the troopers "bad"?  

Sounds like a bunch of whining to me.....

Quoted: tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051211/COLUMNIST0105/512110358/1099/NEWS

+1   Most of the article is trying to make what they are doing sound like some sinister plot.

Many Departments have slots that are highly visible and only given to those who perform.  Many of those get permoted out of them. whop dee do.

OK so they lobbied to be paid average for the region.  I think the screwed up on this one.  They should have lobbied to be the highest paid in the region.

Sounds like some reporter got a ticket and said "I'll show them".  

Just my .02

Now to answer your question...  Some also do weights and measurements, and Drug Interdiction.  
Mostly the ones around my neck of the woods work accidents and traffic.   All of them are top notch professionals and are spit and polished to the max.

thanks for all the insight.

the few times i've been around working troopers i've been impressed with the way they carry themselves- and especially thier speaking patterns.  they all appear to be very professional.  the article isn't the first thing i've heard about the THP- so i'm still considering.  thanks.

Using the radar gun to clock masturbation speed.