Further to the M4 thread, can anyone tell me how the police forces get their hands on these sort of cars e.g. BMW 535i, Volvo T4, Bora 2.3 VTi!!!

 

Do they actually buy theses cars for this purpose or do they ring local dealerships and hire them out for periods at a time?

 

Coz, if they are buying 40K's worth of 535i to thrash up and down the motorways catching people speeding I think this is a bit OTT!

 

I can understand them having T5's and Range Rovers etc. Well maybe I can't, Staffordshire police use Isuzu Troopers which are considerably cheaper than RR's?

 

I heard somewhere recently, bike mag I think, that some forces are using unmarked R1's to catch bikers and motorists. Saying that the R1 can catch high powered cars aswell as speeding bikers so it serves a dual purpose!

 

Can you imagine being a copper and going to work where you get out of your Vauxhall Astra 1.4i and get onto an R1 for the rest of the day/night?

 

This is what I hate most!

 

 

Tim

:-(

 

[This message has been edited by Timmy_Turbo (edited 03-07-2001).]

They did have a Lotus Esprit round these parts on the motorway for a time - dont know if anyone else saw it think it was a S4 or a V8.

 

I wouldn't be too worried about any of the above mentioned cars if we were talkin some bullet style action there.

 

Z ya

 

Nico 91TT

We have unmarked M3 / M5 / Alpina B10 / 911 / Impreza GT, etc etc etc

 

Most of the time, these are seized cars (mostly from drug dealers)

 

Zee you

 

Henri

 

PS :In germany, they have porsches

Yeah Tim and what happens when you call em at 2.30 am coz some scrote has knicked your Zed?

They turn up 2 hours later in a diesel Escort.

Bravo for the Dibbles.

We love em.

--

Officer Mad Glen Rockatansky, Main Force Partol. Sometime in the future.

Most of these cars are donated by the manufacturer for long term testing and also a bit of publicity.

There's no better way of putting lots of tough miles on the clock than by giving them to the pigs.

 

That wouldn't add up for the R1's though! Apparently bikes are tested much more rigorously than even the most expensive sports cars and are designed to be thrashed!!! So someone e.g. plod is getting large fun factor and lots of grins out of a daily job!

 

Still brings me back to my original theory, with more cameras up that frees up more plod as less T5's etc. need to sit on sliproads. So do we see a significant decrease in proper crime then?

 

 

Tim

:-(

When I was at Uni, the local police had a Porsche 911 and a Lotus Esprit Turbo. I started to wonder why I was going to univeristy!

 

I saw that Lotus on Tomorrows World. It cost over £200,000 because of all this flash tracking equipment in it. Just as well, as in Cottingham (near Hull), cars didn't tend to hang around too long!

 

Andy

If you wonder where the money comes from for these cars its easy,,Council tax, income tax, speeding fines, fuel tax etc etc or in other words your pocket! personaly I think they should all get R1's and be told they can go as fast as they want then we sit back and watch them kill themselves one by one

Paul

2 Coppers did that with the first Cossie's that they bought. First trip out and the 2 young policeman gift-wrapped a tree with it. Needless to say that did not go down well.

 

Used to work for the police (don't flame me - I was a civilian!) and had tremendous trouble trying to keep their radios working properly. The bikes seemed to have the most problem. When the radio gear was installed, it would work no problem. Then, no more than a couple of days later, we would get complaints of bad reception, not picking calls up etc.

 

The reason? When parking their bikes in the garage, the highly trained professionals that are the police noticed that the long aerials did not fit properly and bent under the roof of the bike garage. So they cut them off..... There! Fits now!