California Highway Patrol FAQ

Benefits (health insurance, vision, and dental is cheap) Retirement, and lifetime health insurance after 20 years of service. A lot of OT A lot of vacation time (24 hours a month to start and gets up to 31 hours a month)/comp time to take off (max of 480). These benefits make it hard to justify leaving this place, especially if you have family.

This organization is archaic and stuck in the past. We will never be getting external vests. 8 and 9 hour shifts suck, and they don’t seem to be going away any time soon. Management only caring about tickets, crashes and DUI arrest. If you stray from these 3 things or you “play on city streets too much” you’re labeled a trouble maker and will be getting pulled into the Sgt’s office for “counseling”. Most line officers are great people who work hard and will have your back no matter what, but there’s a handful of chippies in every office who seem to have drank too much of cool-aid. They buy into the whole “were the best of the best because we’re the CHP”. We’re not. CHP is good at what we do (traffic), but we’re far from the best.

Get with the times. Implement modern patrol schedules (10, 11, or 12 hour shifts). Allow external vests. Promote people who have actually worked more than a year of patrol.

The retirement plan is the only pro

Most non Uniform employees are in relationships with uniform officers. New non uniform employees are not welcomed and are treated poorly, due to the possibility that opportunities of personal relationships with officers may be limited.

Stop using State property as a dating/social club

Benefits (health insurance, vision, and dental is cheap) Retirement, and lifetime health insurance after 20 years of service. A lot of OT A lot of vacation time (24 hours a month to start and gets up to 31 hours a month)/comp time to take off (max of 480). These benefits make it hard to justify leaving this place, especially if you have family.

This organization is archaic and stuck in the past. We will never be getting external vests. 8 and 9 hour shifts suck, and they don’t seem to be going away any time soon. Management only caring about tickets, crashes and DUI arrest. If you stray from these 3 things or you “play on city streets too much” you’re labeled a trouble maker and will be getting pulled into the Sgt’s office for “counseling”. Most line officers are great people who work hard and will have your back no matter what, but there’s a handful of chippies in every office who seem to have drank too much of cool-aid. They buy into the whole “were the best of the best because we’re the CHP”. We’re not. CHP is good at what we do (traffic), but we’re far from the best.

Get with the times. Implement modern patrol schedules (10, 11, or 12 hour shifts). Allow external vests. Promote people who have actually worked more than a year of patrol.

Benefits (health insurance, vision, and dental is cheap) Retirement, and lifetime health insurance after 20 years of service. A lot of OT A lot of vacation time (24 hours a month to start and gets up to 31 hours a month)/comp time to take off (max of 480). These benefits make it hard to justify leaving this place, especially if you have family.

This organization is archaic and stuck in the past. We will never be getting external vests. 8 and 9 hour shifts suck, and they don’t seem to be going away any time soon. Management only caring about tickets, crashes and DUI arrest. If you stray from these 3 things or you “play on city streets too much” you’re labeled a trouble maker and will be getting pulled into the Sgt’s office for “counseling”. Most line officers are great people who work hard and will have your back no matter what, but there’s a handful of chippies in every office who seem to have drank too much of cool-aid. They buy into the whole “were the best of the best because we’re the CHP”. We’re not. CHP is good at what we do (traffic), but we’re far from the best.

Get with the times. Implement modern patrol schedules (10, 11, or 12 hour shifts). Allow external vests. Promote people who have actually worked more than a year of patrol.

Endless possibilities for career advancement, special positions, meeting helping the citizens of the state.

Report writing and sometime long hours (but compensation is worth it).