Here’s something I’ve long wondered. If I went to a Ford dealer today and bought a Corwn Victoria, took it to a paint shop and had them painted up like a Washington State police cruiser, would I get in trouble? What if I had realistic (but not working) lights and markings? It would sure help my commute in the morning.
And if, as I suspect, that such a thing is illegal, then how is it that movie productions get away with fake cars and trucks with police markings? Or can you typically get a permit for that because it’s a film crew.
The “realistic markings” would probably win you a free ride to the hoozegow and your car a lengthy stay the impound lot. Film crews get permission you cannot obtain as a private citizen.
People often buy old police cruisers at auction. They are permitted to leave the car in its old livery (the identifying marks are removed before sale), plus retain the door mounted spotlight and whip antenna.
Plenty of private “security patrol” cars are made to resemble cop cars. Searchlights, gumball machine lights on top, slogans and numbers on the rear.
And they have uniformed guys with hats and shoulder emblems.
And many taxis look like cop cars from a short distance - numbers on the trunk, medalians on the sides, two-tone paint, light bar on the roof.
I think you could get by with anything that wasn’t specifically official.
I don’t think it would help your commute any. People generally slow to the speed limit when they see a police car, and if they’re already below the speed limit they sure aren’t going to speed up any.
I had a friend with a decommisioned cruiser. It was still police two-toned police colors, but the decals and insignia were gone.
It was a REAL B*TCH when I rode around with her and we were on a two-lane blacktop, 'cuz we’d be stuck going 45 in a 55 zone every time we pulled up behind someone, at least until we hit a passing zone.
In short, a fake cruiser wouldn’t help your commute, unless you actually had lights and sirens. And then you’d definitely be going to jail.
You can have your Crown Vic transformed into a police car look-alike, complete with lights and a siren. But you can’t use it on the road. A film crew will transport their “police cars” to the location on trailers. They have a permit to close the road (the ubiquitous “Closed circuit. Professional driver.” disclaimer you see on all of the car commercials). Since the road is now “private property” (under the terms of the permit), they can drive the “police car” around.
I remember reading about a guy in the South who had a 1964(?) Ford Falcon(?) that was painted in “Mayberry” livery. It even had the lights and a whip antenna. Even though Mayberry was created for The Andy Griggith Show and was not a real place, the car was clearly too old to actually be on active duty, and the license plate read “AUNT BEA”, he was not allowed to operate the car on public roads.
re: The Andy Griffith car, why exactly would he not be able to drive it on the road? At what point is a car “officially” crossing the line in terms of impersonating a police vehicle?
For instance, if I buy a late 90s police car at auction that has everything on it but the decals (and still retains the stripe), isn’t this more of an impersonation than a police car from the 60s?
Not trying to be argumentative, but I am curious how this law would be defined. The only thing I can think of would be that the local jurisdiction’s shield, and the word “police”, would be specifically banned.
I imagine your vehicle can look “similar” to a local police vehicle, but not identical. I remember going to Austin, TX used to piss me off because every damn taxi cab there looked like a police car. Texas is a long state to do the speed limit through!
I know there’s some butt-hole here in the metro-Detroit area who has a car that looks nothing like a police car. But he’s got the alternating, flashing headlights like a police car. Damn bastard’s fooled me twice on E.B. I-94 – I got out of the left lane to let him pass (thinking he’s law), only to find out it’s same jackass in a piece of sh*t old sedan. Seems to work pretty well for him.
I had an auction purchased police interceptor and never had a problem while it was still in uniform.
It was a Blue Brother sort, with white doors and roof on an otherwise metallic blue body. It still said POLICE in yellow letters on the rear fenders and had black numbers on the roof pillars and a big helicopter number on the roof. The big badge decal had been removed from the front doors, but the adhesive had done something to the paint so that there was a very distinct badge-shaped reflective area on the doors.
It had been an S.A. patrol car and I lived in Austin at the time. As I say, during the few months I drove it in cop livery, before I gave it its tasteful avacado green body with blood red roof taxicab tux, I had no problems. I think the local citizenry recognized easily that it wasn’t a local cop, and the police paid me no mind.
And, I’ve noticed that there is a distinct trend amongst police departments (with the exception of California, where they really like the black-and-whites) towards white cars with large graphic decals.
There have been numerous instances where folks have rigged cars to look like police cars (marked and unmarked) and then used them to pull folks over in order to rob/rape/murder. Anyone attempting to make something look vaguely like a police car is going to have a lot of trouble with the cops, even if their vehicle is lega. And not one of the resold police cars I’ve seen have appeared to be in very good condition. It’d be pretty hard to fool someone that the battered POS you’re driving is the real thing.
Actually Tuckerfan, the cruiser I bought was one year old and in good shape (56K miles, though - maybe they have some kind of scoring system for letting’em go that includes mileage). And I’ve recently run across obviously ex-HPD units in traffic here that look at least as good as in-service units.
wig wags, also very illegal. you can get in big trouble for having them… little ricer guys that have strobes in their front headlights are breaking the same law. no strobes on a car are legal, except for maybe orange ones on the roof, like the guys who drive around picking up for sale signs stuck in the ground have.
Mainly, it depends on the mood of the local cops as to how cop-like you can get away with. If it doesn’t look like the local PD’s, you’ll generally be okay. There’s a fair-sized community of collectors of ex-cruisers. I remember one guy on that site (I looked at it awhile back, when I was in a “wanting an interceptor” phase) saying his was allowed by the department he bought it from as long as he put black plastic (i.e., trash bags) over the lightbar and a black stripe down the doors, so it didn’t look completely “real”.
The site I linked above has a message board where you could probably get a more detailed answer than you will here.
Clarifications: the link to the board is low on the page, below the pictures; and the anecdote I mentioned had a Califonia-style black-ends-with-white-doors paintjob.
I’m not aware of any Washington State laws that would make outfitting your car like this illegal per se. Only using the lights would be specifically illegal, as far as the traffic code goes.
Why would you have to have the car painted to match WSP car? The WSP uses all white cars, just buy a white one. My aunt bought a new Ford LTD in the mid 80’s, all white and looked just like stater car. I drove the car a few times from Tacoma to the Long Beach peninsula and I saw some folks do some pretty stupid things because they thought I was a cop. My favorite was the time I was following a pickup with what appeared to contain a couple of teenagers. When they saw me, they immediately slowed to 25 mph (the speed limit was 35). Then I saw the passenger try to discreetly throw bottles of beer out the window. About a mile after the beer tossing they realized I wasn’t a cop and made a quick U-turn, no doubt to go see if they could find the beer tossed out the window.