Plain clothed police cars.

obi_waynne

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Are plain clothed police cars unfair? (assuming cars wear clothes at all :lol:)

How do you spot them - my guess is more than 1 arial and usually something large like a Volvo. With blue flashing lights in the grill - hang on it's too late by then;)
 
the fluorescent jackets are the biggest giveaway. around here its normally beemers and mercs although they have just got a focus.

i prefer the unmarked cars to the cameras at least they will allow you off with more leniency
 
Came up behind on about 80 on the motorway, was like "What're those small, rectangular things across the back of the windscreen...." then realised and was like "Okay slow lane behind this guy, niiiiice and 70mph"

Sneaky.
 
i think its entrapment! thats not fair when your driving around then unsuspectingly you get pulled over by a normal looking car

round here they are generally easy to spot :lol: either a black fiesta or vectra or a white mk2 astra, oh and look in the rear windows for the police led signs!
 
Black Evo 9 by us is the main one although there are a few Volvos about. You always see the Evo pulling some chav in a modded corsa/nova/clio/punto, etc..etc... Very nice though. It's the FQ-340 They have one with markings and that apparently is either the 360 or 400
 
i think its entrapment! thats not fair when your driving around then unsuspectingly you get pulled over by a normal looking car

round here they are generally easy to spot :lol: either a black fiesta or vectra or a white mk2 astra, oh and look in the rear windows for the police led signs!

Entrapment is where you are persuaded or tricked into doing something illegal. If you decide to break the law you need to be very observant :)
 
most of the time in my area all the cars are brought from the same area so we just look out for OU plates tend to be big black vectras or red or blue corsas. they have a new series of cars and were not sure what the plates are yet lol.
 
The unmarked cars aren't used exclusively for traffic duty. They're quite handy if it's necessary for police to infiltrate other covert criminal operations without being seen by the perpetrators.

Most traffic officers are extremely reasonable when it comes to speeding, especially on motorways. They really are not interested in blowing their cover until you're close to three figures.
 
I've seen Audi A4s being used around here. I've also heard that women don't have to stop for unmarked police officers (as it could be an attack). If you're are that worried about unmarked cop cars, then the only solution is don't speed, or at least don't speed to excess!
 
yeah round my area its the vectra's but the thames valley police in my end of berkshire are pretty kl i have been pulled over twice and they aint asked bout my insurance details which is kl but yeah where i live its just look out for vectra's and if there aint any then do what the **** you like.
 
It seems to be Vectras and Astras around here for the most part. There is a MARKED Impreza WRX STi that looks pretty cool too.

If it's in my rear view mirror I look at how many people are in the car first of all. If there's only one person then chances are: it's not an unmarked car. According to a (rather useful) friend of mine in CID, they almost always have two officers in the car.

On occasion I've seen someone pull out and overtake and thought "they drive like a police officer". They've flown past me and then a few miles down the road I've seen the lights flashing and they've pulled someone over. There does seem to be something very "purposeful" about the way they drive. It's subtle and not always conclusive - but if you follow your instincts then you can spot it sometimes.

The majority of unmarked cars on the road belong to CID. They're not all higher powered cars, either. Allmost all of the time they're following someone wanted for another offence, rather than being out looking for people speeding etc. That is not to say that it doesn't happen, however; because it does; but a great deal of the people you see pulled over by unmarked cars are most likely being questioned about something other than speeding.
 
my dad worked for AA and they were responsible for fixing police cars and they're not in fact modified in any way to increase power therefore catch people easier (as i thought) but they remove all badges of the model or engine size so they could have a 3.2l bmw and you wouldnt know therefore almost making a sleeper car
 
Thames Valley's traffic cars are standard in terms of power, but I'm told that the Vectras have the bigger brakes from its Saab 95 cousin. (not a bad thing because Vauxhalls have never had great brakes in my opinion, current Astra excepted - they stop well).

Source of information is a currently serving TVP Traffic Officer and TVP instructor whom I have no reason to doubt or disbelieve.

Not all are debadged either. I've seen liveried and covert Vectra's with 3.2 badges on the back in Met, TV and Northants regions.

As said earlier in this thread, covert cars are not just for traffic policing. They're used to intercept other activities in situations where a liveried car would blow the whole thing.

I do think that some police drivers are devoid of talent though. WHen you see the amount of crashed Panda cars in the local body shop you wonder what's going on.

Official line is that the officers concerned were responding to an emergency.

But, what's the point of driving so stupidly that you smash the car up on the way and don't arrive at all?
 
yeah i saw an undercover policeman in a vectra the other day that had 3.2 v6 on the back and i also spoke to the highway agency guys who said that the vectra's are not modified in any way shape or form, they are just standard diesel v6's but they are still pretty quick though. also if your speeding on the motorway watch out for them as they said that the police are giving them control of catching speeding motorists on the motorways.

peace
 
"also if your speeding on the motorway watch out for them as they said that the police are giving them control of catching speeding motorists on the motorways."

Having civilians cautioning speeding drivers on the hard shoulder sounds a biut far fetched to me. These Hignway Agency guys seem to have Walter Mitty tendencies.
 
I get the impression that policies vary widely from force to force. Do you think this should be standardised?
 
If it was standardised then we (as in the public) would have a better idea of what to look for. As soon we spotted an unmarked Vectra/A4 we would suspect an undercover cop car and we'd slow down. If they vary the vehicles used then we have less chance of spotting them, and a higher chance of being pulled over for speeding (assuming that we are speeding) therefore meaning more money in speeding fines.
 
What's the point of standardising them? They'd then be recongnisable to all of us. Including criminals. Plain Police cars spend more time doing CID work than they do motorway work.
 
"also if your speeding on the motorway watch out for them as they said that the police are giving them control of catching speeding motorists on the motorways."

Having civilians cautioning speeding drivers on the hard shoulder sounds a biut far fetched to me. These Hignway Agency guys seem to have Walter Mitty tendencies.

unfortunatly what was said is correct, idk how much theyd bother to enforce it but they will be getting the power shortley.
 
i thought the idea of the highway ageny was to shut the moterway when a hedgehog of somehting else got run over.

The Highways Agency undoubtedly has a role to play in maintaining swift and safe traffic flow. Detaining drivers at the roadside is not part of this in my opinion.

I don't think that the power to caution or report drivers for speeding is going to be achieved without a complete change to traffic law, the criminal evidence act and the criminal justice act.

Only a police officer currently has the right to pursue and stop a car. If this is extended to civilians (which is what HA employees are) then where will we go from there? Well, firstly PACE will have to be completely rewritten to cover any case that is challenged and subsequently goes beyond a magistrate's court.

You need to keep in mind that the police, the government and the courts are not the law in themselves.

And, do we truly have a problem with speed on motorways. If you look at the statistics then yes, we do. If you look at the gathered data from which the statistics are compiled then we can prove that we have lots of vehicles exceeding the speed limit.

But is that actually a problem in terms of overall safety?

I suspect not. So why spend f''' knows how much trying the change the shape of a series of numbers to achieve almost nothing?

Sadly' the current government will ignore such simple rationales and force things through to suit their next election campaign.

So. You should watch out. But you shouldn't have to.
 
in regards to hdi fun, fair enough yeah what you say does make sense, but i am only telling you what i got told by the highway guys, who also claimed that they were trained better to deal with road users than the old bill.
 
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I got flashed the other day by a white BMW, I'm just hoping it wasn't a police car. I was only a bit over the limit and it was just before the national speed limit sign on a steep hill so I'll be pretty miffed if I've been caught out on a momentary lapse!

I think it might have just been a miffed BMW driver who I left standing when I pulled away at the national limit but the single flash was very bright! Do car mounted cameras actually flash anyway? :eek:

The driver didn't have a uniform on or anything suggesting an official capacity but he did stick fastidiously to the speed limits!
 
If it was a car travelling Waynne then they would of followed you to record your speed over a set distance.
There is no prosecution unless they do this.
Unless of course they had a radar gun.
You sure there wasn't a camera at the side of the road?
 
Car mounted cameras don't take stills, they take moving video footage. Forget all about it. You're totally in the clear. Even if they do follow you and use VASCAR and video they MUST stop you at the road side and explain that you are either being offered a a FPN or that you are to be reported for a speeding offence.

If it was an unmarked police car then the flash could well have been a charitable one just to alert you to the speed limit in force.

No way you'll receive anything in the post. Guaranteed.
 
Aye, that's the way to spot an unmarked, it comes tooling up behind you, stays 30 yards behind for a few minutes, while the two blokes inside pretend not to look at you.
 
They're certainly not going to blow their cover just to get you for a dozen or so mph over the national speed limit if what you're doing is not actually dangerous.
 
Saw a fairly new red volvo pull someone over on m25 last week near surrey!,i thought H A were glorified traffic wardens with very little power!.
 
Police that work in traffic have already put in to work there. So you know strait away they are door knobs. What ever car there in, I still don't like em.

There job is to catch people out. They surve no extra benefit. They can't get any quicker to an accident than one dressed in blues.
 
The plain car bunch do far more than just traffic duty. Intercepting convoys of weapons etc. is pretty hard in a marked vehicle for example.

Also all SEG cars are unmarked.

Let's not get too disillusioned with them. It's a very difficult job and most do it very well and very fairly.
 
The plain car bunch do far more than just traffic duty. Intercepting convoys of weapons etc.

What? Sat in a layby just outside Dufftown on an A road where there is not a School/shop in sight. They are just lazy sods.

A470 going through the middle of Wales. What convoy of weapons they stopping there?

They are the bottom of the pile in my eye's and no one will convince me otherwise.

They can have the cars for the reason you said, but how often they use em for that? Hardly ever. They can use slow astra's for that, not M5's/T5's or Evo 10's like you see on the telly.
 
What? Sat in a layby just outside Dufftown on an A road where there is not a School/shop in sight. They are just lazy sods.

A470 going through the middle of Wales. What convoy of weapons they stopping there?

They are the bottom of the pile in my eye's and no one will convince me otherwise.

They can have the cars for the reason you said, but how often they use em for that? Hardly ever. They can use slow astra's for that, not M5's/T5's or Evo 10's like you see on the telly.

I didn't say that they don't perform traffic duty as well. But it's not on the same level as the indiscriminate cameras. Whether FIP or mobile, cameras are totally indiscriminate, police officers aren't.
 

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