Why do detectives drive unmarked cars

The light should not be a temporary or movable one. Second, no one pulling you over in an unmarked police car will ever be wearing a ski mask. Third, all sworn officers within the department have proper identification on them when driving an unmarked vehicle. You should provide your name, location, make and model of your car, and ideally the make and model of the unmarked car attempting to pull you over.

The Police Department Dispatch Center will be able to verify if a police officer is making the traffic stop. I owned a Camaro Z28 some years ago.

At the time the county had several Z28 Camaros unmarked and different colors that patrolled the major county roads. When I was driving to work on the county parkway, cars would speed up to my left and drop back as soon as they saw my car, even though my car was just personal transportation. They were not going to take a chance on acting a fool. The unmarked cars became a deterrent in themselves. Behaviors are changed by knowing police are around and are prepared to enforce the law.

After a while, that becomes a habit behavior, not an enforced behavior. I am a firm believer of law enforcement's use of unmarked vehicles for traffic enforcement! It comes down to driver integrity, if they are doing the right thing all the time then it does not matter if there are marked or unmarked cars. So many drivers go right back to breaking the law as soon as a marked unit is out of sight. I believe people's disregard for traffic laws can be curbed by increasing unmarked traffic enforcement units!

As a woman alone, I would not attempt to evade a stop by an unmarked vehicle, but I would definitely not stop in an unpopulated or rural area. I would not ask any of my family members to stop for an unmarked vehicle. I would however advise them to slow down and drive to a well-lit, highly visible area or wait for a marked unit to arrive before stopping or exiting the vehicle.

In my years as a police officer in a large metropolitan area, people often failed to recognize an unmarked unit as an emergency vehicle and failed to yield right of way.

This practice would further endanger the safety of the traffic enforcement unit. This can be quite effective. It is important to consider those who are not cops trying to copy this method for criminal intentions.

In short, how will the public know the real police vehicle from the fake vehicle? The Chattanooga Police Department uses subdued police markings. I like this method and the public cannot tell that this appearing unmarked police vehicle is official until they look at it directly from a certain spot. A "well done" for CPD. It is important to be creative when criminals threaten the safety of the community.

A mix of both is important, but you can't undervalue the importance of unmarked police vehicles for traffic enforcement. Unmarked police vehicles, should have a well-endowed hidden light package to avoid confusion from the public and to provide safety for the officer. The idea is to catch people when they think they aren't being watched. When people see a marked police vehicle, they drive better. This is called the halo effect.

So, what are drivers doing when they don't see a police vehicle? Everyone has had that experience of cruising down the highway, seeing a marked car in the center median, checking your speedometer, tapping the brake, passing the car at or near the speed limit, and then resuming your speed once the police car is out of sight.

It elicits a temporary change in behavior. There are countless psychology studies on this. Just think back to school, and how the behavior of the class changed when the teacher stepped out of the room. When police want to catch drug dealers, they use covert methods to observe the illegal behavior. It works very well. If you believe in only marked cars for traffic enforcement, then your rationale should carry over to all fields of investigation. A marked car on the corner would surely stop a drug dealer from operating on the street, but would it convince them to give up their life of crime?

Of course not. They would just put on their halo, and wait until the police car was gone. Have not heard one compelling argument for NOT using unmarked cars.

Yes, of course, use them to supplement the marked vehicles. The answer to this question seems to align with the premise of: is the point of policing to get citizens to obey the laws only when they feel there's an immediate police presence or all the time? Unmarked vehicles should be used for traffic enforcement. It's the element of surprise for the bad guy.

The statute has received a lot of criticism since its inception in and was even the subject of a graduate research paper , written by a police officer who found fault with what he perceived to be weaknesses in the statute. But the statute remains on the books, which means drivers daily run the risk of coming across an unmarked police car in Indiana.

Subsection a of the statute provides that a law enforcement officer is not permitted to arrest or issue a traffic citation to a driver for violating an Indiana law or city ordinance concerning the use of a motor vehicle unless the officer is either:.

Subsection a does not apply to an officer in an unmarked police vehicle if there is a uniformed officer present at the arrest or if the arrest or traffic citation is for the following offense:. Indiana Code is not a long statutory section, but compliance with it is more complicated than one might think. An unmarked police car is one that lacks the standard visible markings and sounds of a typical police car. Unmarked cars can have various bells and whistles that, upon inspection, give them away—some practice can help a person identify marked versus unmarked police cars.

Some of the indicators are more visible than others:. Different states handle the use of unmarked police cars differently. Some states impose restrictions such as limiting their use to daylight hours or requiring them to be marked in a distinctive manner.

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