Police codes : speak derned English !

It's tough being a cop in Virginia. You may be 10-7 (off duty) when you see a 10-54 (livestock on a highway) cause a 10-50 (traffic accident). There's nothing to do other than call in a 10-32 (alarm) and a 10-13 (request a wrecker). 10-4? Message received.

Probably not.

For decades police departments across the US have used the 10-codes as verbal shorthand when calling in incidents over their radios. But in those decades the codes have come to mean different things to different cops.

Now Virginia, dismayed at the confusion caused when police departments have to cooperate, has scrapped the codes and introduced a far more sophisticated communication system: plain English.

"Local police were talking 10 codes. So were the Pentagon police. The FBI have their own little 10 codes," Arlington fire department captain Richard Slusher told the Washington Post. "You didn't know what they were talking about."

So while a 10-54 means livestock on highway to Virginia state police, to those in Alexandria county a 10-54 is code for a breathalyser. And while a 10-13 may be a request for a wrecker in nearby Montgomery county, in Alexandria it is the more alarming message that an officer is in trouble.