Following strict new orders, he frequently leaves his squad car, hopping out to visit a bartender, then a barber, then a bank teller who squealed and clapped her hands, demanding to see the latest photograph of his son.

As gasoline soars past the $4-a-gallon mark, police chiefs in towns and cities across the country are ordering their officers out of the car and onto their feet in a budgetary scramble.

"It's changing the way we police," said Chief Mike Jones of the Suwanee Police Department, who has asked his officers to walk for at least one hour of every shift. "We're going to have to police smarter than we have in the past."

Jones budgeted about $60,000 for fuel in the fiscal year that ended last month; the department spent $94,000. This year, he budgeted $163,000 -- a large line item in a budget of $3.8 million.

The Houston Police Department exceeded its gasoline budget of $8.7 million last year and expects to spend $11.3 million this year. San Diego, which budgets fuel costs citywide, already expects to exceed its budget for the fiscal year that started July 1 by $1.5 million.

Departments have switched to lower-octane gasoline and installed GPS receivers in patrol cars to make dispatching more efficient. State troopers have gone from cruising the highways to sitting and monitoring traffic in "stationary patrols."

The State Highway Patrol in Missouri plans to increase its use of single-engine airplanes to look for speeders. In Marietta, Ga., the police department is working out a policy for its new T3 Personal Mobility Vehicles, a battery-powered cross between a Segway and a scooter. In Cook County, Ill., deputies have mothballed their cars in favor of bicycles.

Other agencies have increased penalties for false alarms or stopped responding to 911 calls if they are determined not to be emergencies.

But one of the most popular fuel conservation measures has been the simplest: walking. Or as Chief Frank Hooper of Gainesville, Ga., put it in a memorandum, "walk and talk."