Why arent police cars painted high viz colors

[MongGrel]

It varies, I still see a few in my neighborhood driving around what looks like a normal car that just has "Police Interceptor" on the back end other than the ugly hubcaps that clue you off to begin with.

I know when I was stationed in Hawaii in the early 80's the cops there a lot of the time just drove everyday cars with a blue light they would just turn on like some detectives you see in shows.

I do remember one case of a young girl getting pulled over and abducted back then of just a car with a blue light pulling her over and no one thought anything of it att.

Not sure if that is still a policy over there, was a lot of flack over that one at the time.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Black with the big italic POLICE font looks more tactical and intimidating. Bonus points if it has a "moose shield" on the front like on transports.

I find the crown vic always gives it away though. Like a lot of "undercover" cops use white unmarked cars but you can pretty much tell right away that it's a cop from the fact that it's a crown vic and from the antennas, the hub caps and there's always a white circle object on the dash, not sure if that's the radar detector or a light or something.

 

[MongGrel]

Yeah, a white crown vic is usually another give away.

At least in FL

Back in the day you'd see LEO's driving Black unmarked Monte Carlos and shit like that in Hawaii.

 

[boomhower]

Mainly cost and availability. Black and white are always in stock and cheap. Want any other color and you have to wait until they have enough orders to make a production run and it costs more. We used to have blue but it would take up to six months for them to get enough orders to do a run. They don't just run off the line like the production cars. For a high visibility paint your looking at a custom job. We changed to white for these reasons. I doubt most municipalities want to pay out $2k or more to paint a brand new car.

 

[foghorn67]

Better question. Why are cops allowed to get fat?

 

[pcgeek11]

In my hometown, the cars were once a noticible green. But the city complained was that the cars were repeatedly being damaged and matching the green was expensive. They went to plain colors (mostly all white, some all black) after that. Seemed like it was a patch rather than a solution to the problem. We needed better drivers of the cars or someone who was less picky about a slight mismatch of a color if cost of repainting was the real problem.

Instead, I always suspected that the real reason for the color change was that it made them harder to spot. Their goal is to be in plain sight (to avoid entrapment issues) but as invisible as possible (to maximize revenue for the judges who get paid per ticket, which is a perverse incentive for the judges not to be independent from the police).

Got a link to back that up? I'm not buying that as fact.

If true that is screwed up to the max.

 

[FallenHero]

If you guys want the real reason it's because resell value is higher on all gray, all white, or all black vehicles. That really is the reason.

Fire trucks and such don't have to worry about resale into a civilian fleet or to the general public, hence the red.

 

[runzwithsizorz]

If you guys want the real reason it's because resell value is higher on all gray, all white, or all black vehicles. That really is the reason.

Fire trucks and such don't have to worry about resale into a civilian fleet or to the general public, hence the red.

WOW! hold the phone! so you're telling us that mommy Government is so concerned with resale value, and saving tax payers money that the real reason they paint cars gray, white, black, green, blue, etc is to save money?, Gee who would of thought? :whiste:
You don't suppose the reason for not worrying about the resale into a civilian fleet or to the general public, red fire trucks is, cuz, ummmm, THERE FRICKING FIRE TRUCKS! Then again, if the price was right, I'm sure a few boy's from the hood wouldn't mind having the ability to hose down a few people, ------ Oh wait.
BTW, a fireman friend of mine has more than once, driven down into Mexico with a convoy of *old* engines to be donated. Hmmmm wonder if we got a huge tax write off?