Police Academy Pass Mark Questioned After Footpath Chase, Linehands Offer To Run The Fitness Test Between Smoko And The Ute

"How the fuck do you fall chasing one bloke?" That is the question a man behind the phone put to the whole street, and it has now become the most reasonable question the trade has heard all spring. Nobody on the footpath had a good answer, least of all the blokes in the vests.

THE FOOTPATH — A stretch of wet grass, one chain-link fence and a very average sprint have put the police academy pass mark under review. According to the voice in the video, if the runner had been any faster he would have been gone, and the blokes behind him were "slow as shit". His words, and he did not stop at one lap of them.

The crew know the feeling. Every linehand has chased a hose that let go of the bucket, a ute rolling backwards off a slab, or a lunch order that left without him. None of that is done in forty pounds of gear, a commentator noted, but all of it is done before smoko, on no sleep, with a foreman yelling.

"It should be a crime being that slow," the man said. Linehands have kindly offered to host the fitness test: one 50 metre sprint, one stick of pipe under each arm, one concrete truck reversing at them. Pass mark is not falling over.

The verdict from the footpath: the gear weighs a lot, the pace weighs less, and the only thing dropped faster than the pursuit was the bar.