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Why aren't police cars in the USA high vis like in Europe? The biggest fraction of police officer deaths is from car crashes, yet we choose to make our police vehicles either black or black + white. A few agencies use white with colored markings but that is changing quickly.
European police cars look like this:
Mod cu: copyrighted imaget.
American police cars look like this:
Mod cut: copyrighted image.
Because police work is largely about revenue generation, and you can see a high-vis cop car a lot easier (surprise!) and have a higher chance of avoiding a speed trap, etc.
This is an odd question that sounds as if someone has been watching too many old TV shows. I have no police in my town (State Troopers only, white with blue and yellow stripes) but the neighboring town has snazzy silver grey ones with black letters. Another neighboring town has green and white. Different towns have different colors.
American police cars are almost all black, or black with white decals, and all of them have decals of some kind, so why not use high vis decals?
Not sure where you get your ideas. Many police cars are different colors. Many here are white, the highway patrol is dark blue. All have high visibility decals.
I believe the reason for the accidents involve a combination of high intensity flashing lights and driver target fixation. At night on roads not well lit your eyes adjust to the darkness and then you come across blindingly bright flashing police car lights. Some drivers are blinded by these lights. In other cases the driver becomes so focused on the police car and the vehicle they pulled over or accident they’re responding to that they unintentionally drive directly into the police car. Even black police cars have a reflective material that lights up when car headlights hit them. The problem isn’t the cars, it’s the drivers.
This is an odd question that sounds as if someone has been watching too many old TV shows. I have no police in my town (State Troopers only, white with blue and yellow stripes) but the neighboring town has snazzy silver grey ones with black letters. Another neighboring town has green and white. Different towns have different colors.
Maryland State Troopers have yellow, or used to.
Weird thread.
Maryland State Troopers now use mostly Brown cars.
Some cars used by police have roofs that slant forward, so the profile of the small emergency lights will be harder to spot when they are turned off. It's all for the sake of stealth and surprise. The old general theory about police patrols, was first, to be seen, to discourage the violation of laws and traffic ordinances. Now, it's apparently focused on raising money with as many large fines as possible.
One time, I almost got picked-off by a police car in front of my home. At night, I took a few steps out into the street, before I became aware of a ghost car coming towards me without lights or its motor running. I spun around and dived for safety and the car never stopped, but kept coasting for another block. Guess whose fault it would have been, if I'd been hit?
Some of those new LED lights are now essentially not much bigger than roof rack rails. And with more and more going to SUV's. It's becoming much harder to spot them.
Where I live, the county uses mainly dark blue Ford Explorers. This has "trained" me to slow down or look at all blue or black Explorers when I'm on the road.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dkf747
Maryland State Troopers now use mostly Brown cars.
More olive and black no?
They actually blend in very well with trees/foliage behind them. Speed traps on I70 would be hard to spot if it wasn't for everyone lighting up their brakes
Not sure where you get your ideas. Many police cars are different colors. Many here are white, the highway patrol is dark blue. All have high visibility decals.
I work in state law enforcement. I see police vehicles from across the state every day. The vast majority are black, some are black and white, and few are white. I have never seen any police car with high visibility Battenburg markings. The vehicles where I work now only have one white panel, the hood. So they are effectively low vis and officers have noticed that they are less visible to drivers.
Again, I did not say every single police vehicle is low vis. I'm talking about the broad trend. Just because you saw one high vis police car once doesn't disprove what this thread is about.
Why aren't police cars in the USA high vis like in Europe? The biggest fraction of police officer deaths is from car crashes, yet we choose to make our police vehicles either black or black + white. A few agencies use white with colored markings but that is changing quickly.
European police cars look like this:
Mod cu: copyrighted imaget.
American police cars look like this:
Mod cut: copyrighted image.
USA cop cars are not under a universal mandate as to color and markings. They're every color of the rainbow. The locals here have black, a couple of unmarked units are so black as to be near invisible, township are beige which are almost invisible, city are black and white. They all have reflective decals.
The staties are grey Chargers.
And car crashes aren't caused by color, they're caused by a series of events and mistakes that result in proving again the law of physics that states two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
Here's an article about Baltimore switching from white to black. The police chief said he wanted to project a tougher image, despite white being associated with community policing and visibility for when you need help
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