Nashville and Cars

In the story on the city car fleet and its cost, I compared Louisville’s practice of letting police officers use their cars for personal errands to those of Nashville, Tennessee. There, officers can drive their cars home, but only specific employees – SWAT team members, for example – can use their city-provided cars for personal driving.This week, the Associated Press reported this: Metro Nashville government will shrink its fleet of cars by 10 percent to save fuel. The Tennessean reported Mayor Karl Dean would announce the reduction Monday (6-3). The paper quoted the mayor's office as saying the city will eliminate 400 vehicles and expects to save more than $1.4 million a year. The report also said the mayor will reduce the number of employees who may drive city cars home.Rising fuel costs will be affecting TARC services in Louisville, but the fleet will remain intact. In part two of my interview with Mayor Jerry Abramson, I brought up that in the 1990s the county police force temporarily suspended it’s take-home car program. He says there are no plans to do that now.