High Security Motorcades are common in Washington DC, who is eligible? (attorney, house)

[Weekend Traveler]

I work in Downtown Washington DC and I am always seeing Motorcades. Some are huge, so it must be the President. Others smaller with no blocked streets. But what is incredible to me is how many of the Motorcades involved blocked streets/sidewalks, lots of police activity, and tons of police.

Does anyone know who is eligible for a Motorcade? Are all Cabinet Secretaries eligible? How about Congressional Leaders? The White House Chief of Staff? Just how many government leaders are eligible for a Police Escorted traffic blocked Motorcade? As a driver in DC they are tiring and overdone!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcade

[JimGriffith]

I live by the naval observatory so I can say with certainty the VP gets one -- but I have no idea why he insists on using it during F***ing rush hour when I'm trying to get home.

They definitely do not apply to congressional leaders or all secretaries or to the white house staff. all House and Senate leadership and everyone in the cabinet gets some level of secret service protection, but not an armed escort. I've seen a few of them arrive and leave certain things in a pretty low key way. Hell, I once saw Sandra Day O'Connor pumping her own gas up in tenleytown.

DecDEf gets one and so does SecState but that could be it.

One thing I think you're overlooking is foreign heads of state. When a european prime minister is in town, they have a motorcade. And then when it's someone like Karzai or Netanyahu or a gulf emir, then it's a serious lockdown big time escort.

[PenguinSix]

The President is pretty much the only one they fully close down roads for, but it has been done for others on occasion depending on the current threat assessment. I think the VP generally gets a motorcycle escort that closes streets 'on the fly' but when the President is moving they are closed and cleared. Back when he was SecDef Cheney used to drive himself to work in a beat up old car, while some of his assistants had two or three car mortorcades. Generally some of the top folks in COG will have some form of escort, and when a large group of Congressman move around (i.e. on a bus) they often get a police escort. It all just depends on the risk at that time. I think some Supreme Court justices walk to work, while the Attorney General has a pretty heavy armored convoy. The leader of Israel will get a SWAT team or two in behind his convoy while the leader of Ghana will move around basically unnoticed.

I mean if some undersecretary of counter-narcotics is getting threats he'll get some protection, whereas his boss may be driving himself. It all depends.