Cumbria police, new arrival

"Svend" (svend) 06/10/2020 at 11:53 • Filed to: None

4

38

New arrival to the police garage for Cumbria Roads Policing.

a Skoda Superb liftback, 2.0 TSi 4 x4 280.

She looks good.

To go with the Superb estates.

and the rest of the fleet.

facw > Svend 06/10/2020 at 12:09

5

Defu nd the police! And give  their Volvo wagon to me!

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > Svend 06/10/2020 at 12:11

1

I’m never really a big fan of the UK Battenburg markings, but so many of those cars are so nice.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > Svend 06/10/2020 at 12:12

0

I love quite a few of these, but what’s up with the unmarked Volvo wagon?

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > Svend 06/10/2020 at 12:16

2

That undercover Volvo wagon looks sliiiiiiiiiiick. I really love the cars they are based on, but the full body high contrast paint kind of hides the good looks of the Supurb. I do like how the geometric headlights and grille tie together with the yellow and blue rectangles though.

Are those vertically mounted light bars within the grille? Nice.

Svend > Eric @ opposite-lock.com 06/10/2020 at 12:25

1

The unmarked Volvos and marked Volvos are used for roads policing and armed response* . The unmarked allow the police to catch drivers using their phones, smoking in company vehicles (illegal here), unrestrained children or relevant children not in ‘booster seats’, people smoking in the car where minors are in the vehicle (illegal here), etc... 

* If you look at the bottom left of the windscreens, you’ll see a red dot on some, these denoted armed response or equipp ed.

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > Svend 06/10/2020 at 12:33

1

smoking in company vehicles is illigal here too, but it wouldn’t be enforced by the police...more of a work place inspection type issue.

That’s kinda nuts. Thanks EU!

Svend > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 06/10/2020 at 12:34

2

I like it on the Superb estate, with the black base colour it really really makes the retroreflective blue and yellow batterburg livery stand out*.

Which is what bugs me when people say they got caught speeding and how the police are there just collecting revenue. I say well they should of also been charged with ‘ driving without due care and attention’, because if your speeding and you know that’s breaking the law, AND you also don’t see one of these,

then you really shouldn’t be on the road.

Some lights are horizontal, some vertical depending on the grille and what space they have to play with behind it. 

Svend > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 06/10/2020 at 12:38

2

Our police, like most police have to do so much more than they used to.

I still get into the odd taxi here and there and get a strong smell of tobacco .

It’s a law that is accepted my many anyways. 

fintail > Svend 06/10/2020 at 12:46

1

Weird seeing police cars not slathered with flags and similar faux-patriot garbage, or meaningless blather meant to warm the hearts of closet fascists.

Let me guess, these cops also shoot people less.

El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First! > Svend 06/10/2020 at 12:57

0

I don't like Skodas. They're dull.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > Svend 06/10/2020 at 13:04

1

You are right. It is much easier to hide in some bushes with one of these.

But if you can’t see a car painted to be as visible as possible then you probably weren’t paying attention. But of course fines are built into the system as a source of revenue and each officer has a daily quota.

Sometimes though they like to hide over a crest so you can’t see the speed trap until its too late. The new police interceptor utilities are more visible still. Supposedly Ford did a lot of work on the undercover units to make them blend in with the soccer moms, but they are painfully obvious to me. The plate frames have these little lights to each side and there are obvious hidden lights behind the tinted windows. Also, the new Explorer hasn’t been a huge success and I don’t see all that many.

^the normal one

Shame that we don’t see any all blue liveries anymore; I liked those.

facw > fintail 06/10/2020 at 13:10

3

Last year, the U.S. recorded more than 1,000 killings by law enforcement, dwarfing the number of police-related deaths in Canada, with 36 in 2017; Germany, with 14 that year; and England and Wales, with three in 2018. 

What the World Could Teach America About Policing

Granted, fewer guns on the street means less pressure to shoot first an ask questions later, and of course the US has a larger population, but the disparity is still really shocking.

Svend > fintail 06/10/2020 at 13:16

3

We know they are British and don’t need a shit load of flags or anything.

They do tend to livery the vehicles (or have a vehicle ) for gay pride events and deck some of the vehicles with poppies for remembrance day.

((below is an Island of Jer sey police vehicle)).

Some do a single poppy

others go heavier into it but not all cars, just a car here and there.

Much less. There is a whole protocol that must be followed.

Armed officers are given authority to arm by an allocated silver or gold comm ander for that incident, they may not be on site but in a control room. They have near full control over the armed officers.

When given authority to arm, the officers will find a safe place to get their weapons and body armour ready. They will then drive to the scene and take control. Everything is relayed to the commander and they decide whether to go in, wait for a mediator, dog team, etc...

If the officer feels that they are in immediate danger they can fire back without the commander’s consent. Any weapon fired is handed in and a full enquiry undertaken as to why, where, when, how many rounds, etc...

Most police officers don’t want guns.

The only British police force that routinely carries guns is the PSNI (Police Service Northern Ireland), who carry guns even when not on duty for their own protection.

https://www.inquest.org.uk/fatal-police-shootings

7 4 deaths in England Wales in the last 30 years.

fintail > Svend 06/10/2020 at 13:27

1

Meanwhile in Murka:

I’ve been to numerous countries, the flag thing is definitely American extremism. As you say, I know what country I’m in. At least there are no punisher decals. It wasn’t always like this, go back a generation or two, and police markings were generally traditional style crests and badge symbols. Nothing meant to appeal to the emotions of specific demographics.

Regarding the rest, I think protocol is up to “discretion” here. The US can learn something.

fintail > facw 06/10/2020 at 13:27

2

Per capita numbers really say it all, and not in a good way.

Armed society polite society, I guess.

AestheticsInMotion > Svend 06/10/2020 at 13:31

1

What’s with Northern Ireland? Dangerous area?

I love that pride car. Much more interesting than the simple rainbow stripe you see around here occasionally 

Svend > AestheticsInMotion 06/10/2020 at 13:58

0

? Erm, well you could say that, b efore things calmed down a bit you had pro-unionist/ loyalist (mostly protestant) and pro-republican/ nationalist (mostly catholic) militias (IRA, UVF, etc...) who’d plant IEDs to kill the others, or shootings and killings of others.

Policing was mostly done by the army up until the 1990s.

Things are much quieter now but there is the odd flair up when there is a march or parade. 

ranwhenparked > fintail 06/10/2020 at 14:13

0

Well, they do have a big badge with the Royal Cyp her and St. Edward’s Crown as symbols of r oyal authority, I’d say that’s pretty patriotic.

fintail > ranwhenparked 06/10/2020 at 14:17

0

True, but I don’t see yokels or brave tough guys in the UK wrapped in the crown trying to something something freedom. I doubt those symbols conjure up nearly the same emotional reaction.

ranwhenparked > Svend 06/10/2020 at 14:23

1

You’ve also only had 10 police officers killed on the job in like the past 10 years, we’ve had 5 killed in the past 9 days. We’re a more violent and unstable country in general, and guns aren’t the only reason, Britain still wasn’t near as violent, even before all your current gun control measures were in place. It's something broken in our culture, or lack of social cohesion, or something.

Svend > fintail 06/10/2020 at 14:30

0

Here it’s simply the livery with police and/or the constabulary crest on.

The livery itself is protected so even if you didn’t have police written on but had reflective blue and yellow squares on, you could be charged with impersonating a police officer.

The onl y other things you’ll see on a police car is a compressed gas or explosive warning sticker, ‘petrol’ or diesel’ sticker on the fuel door (sometimes a gre en dot for petrol or black dot for diesel on the fuel filler door), there may also be a star, red dot or yellow dot on front, rear and side windows of the car to denote whether it’s an armed equipped vehicle.

We do have more serious equipment like the Jan kals.

ranwhenparked > fintail 06/10/2020 at 14:40

1

It all started when full color large vinyl decals became cheap and easy to print, beginning with maybe one special car they would park in a visible place at big events, or take to schools, and gradually extending to the rest of the fleet. I believe it was also a morale thing, e.g., officers with good performance reviews could drive the special decal car, which now usually applies to the “ghost” cars a lot of places are using. I guess it’s sort of similar to the thing going on in the military, where everyone wears camouflage all the time, even when there’s no practical need, because it supposedly boosts morale, despite looking slightly ridiculous on a ship or sitting at a desk in a stateside office doing computer work , the Navy’s constant camo envy comes to mind. Basically, a morale builder, some other city has fancier and more colorful cars, they whine until they get them, because can’t seem to be missing out, heaven forbid. And nobody has the guts to try and start a new trend by doing something different. 

fintail > Svend 06/10/2020 at 14:40

1

Whenever I see fuel stickers in the UK/Europe, I think “rental car”.

No doubt you’ve seen some of the military vehicles currently used by police in this part of the world. This kind of thing isn’t uncommon:

To be fair, in a society with so many weapons and such little mental health capacity/social safety net, it is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.

At one time, typical livery was like this:

Then, something changed.

fintail > ranwhenparked 06/10/2020 at 14:48

1

That makes sense, cheap wraps.   Still seems like a questionable use of resources, not to mention the shallow pandering (in my opinion) of the often preferred livery.   Why not do a fun dazzle camo or chameleon type scheme or something related to a local area - blind flag waving is a dangerous thing.

ranwhenparked > fintail 06/10/2020 at 15:02

0

That would require paying an actual graphic designer to come up with something original, 90+% of this stuff is stock designs picked out of a catalog. 

Svend > ranwhenparked 06/10/2020 at 15:08

0

The thing is gun control. So many cry, ‘it’s my amendment right, yadda yadda yadda’. Yes, it was amended into the constitution, it can be amended out, just like prohibition.

Also the constitution was a founding document, designed to work from, as itself was from our Magna Carta, thousands and thousands of laws have come and gone since then as the country has evolved.

All over the world laws are worked out on the weakest person, but the U.S. brings in one extra form as a hurdle to getting a gun and you shout, ‘hey, why should I be inconvenienced to buying a gun just because some person with alcohol, drug or mental issues may get a gun and shoot someone. I’m a responsible owner’.

This guy is/was an FBI agent, dancing in public with a gun in the back of his trouser belt, not in a fixed holster or anything holding it secure, then, then, picks it up by the trigger and it goes off and he simply walks off, doing the ‘oops, my bad, my bad’ han d gestures.

That’s an FBI (ex-army captain), unsecured weapon in a bar where he’d been drinking, etc... people have become too complacent to guns.

I had typed a lot more but it’s only going to antagonise some others because what do I know, I’m a foreigner, etc... 

fintail > ranwhenparked 06/10/2020 at 15:17

0

Maybe have some officers design a livery, not resorting to the mentally lazy nationalist themes. Surely there are stock themes that could be used, too.

I like the simple traditional shields/badges most.

ranwhenparked > Svend 06/10/2020 at 15:32

0

But, then, you’ve got places like Finland, Switzerland, Germany, and Iceland with pretty high gun ownership rates, who don’t have the problems the US does - gun ownership in  Iceland is actually much higher than the US, 1/3 of the population has at least one firearm. There’s some bigger sickness going on in our society. Prohibition is what really started the arms race between cops and criminals, up to the 1920s, our officers were lightly armed, and in a lot of cases, not armed at all, then they started getting outgunned by organized crime and that started the back and forth oneupmanship with escalating violence that continues. There’s been some interruption, violent crime dropped a lot in the 1950s and again in the 1990s and 2000s, but it seems to be trending up again in the past several years. 

xc90v8/I4 :( > Svend 06/10/2020 at 15:41

0

W hat’ s the reason why they didn’t go with another estate?

Svend > fintail 06/10/2020 at 15:48

1

We can call in the SAS, SBS, Royal Marines, Armed Assault Brigades, etc...

SAS ‘Blue Thunder’ unit.

Army paratroopers, etc... 

Lol. It’s because we have pretty equal amounts of petrol and diesel vehicles. One of my former colleagues, after we cleaned out the ambulance, she took it to get fueled up. Even though it was a loud obn oxious diesel engine, she still managed to fill the vehicle up with petrol. Thankfully the vehicle hadn’t moved much across the forecourt before she realised. Phoned to say what had happened and it’d be taken off the road for the next day and she’d call out the RAC to drain the system and clean it all out.

A misfueling can be expensive, so it’s best to make sure there are no mistakes.

In the old days we had these, in the 1970s

Then we got the ‘jam sandwich’ livery. In the 1980s.

1990s onwards.

Svend > xc90v8/I4 :( 06/10/2020 at 15:55

0

Not sure but these Superbs do have massive boots.

Between the liftback and the estate, there is only 35 litres of luggage space in it.

fintail > Svend 06/10/2020 at 16:06

0

And you’ve no doubt read a lot about the veiled or blatant threats to bring the military into American policing lately. Fortunately, so far only National Guard used for crowd control or cleanup/assistance efforts.

I recall on every diesel I have rented on the continent, a sticker both inside and outside. I may or my not have removed the outside sticker, as it bugged me. Having a couple diesels as personal vehicles, I can admit to having at least grabbed the gasoline pump handle while refueling, especially if having fueled a gasoline car just before. But I always caught myself.

Looks like your police cars have become more bedazzled with time, too. That XJ6 would be an interesting choice in terms of reliability, maybe used for more special occasions rather than pounding the pavement. The modern era proliferation of BMW police cars there is interesting too.

Maybe most memorable to me here is the WA State Patrol’s fleet of Fox body notchback 5.0 Mustangs - these were used throughout the 80s into the 90s, and several survived - prized nostalgia pieces today:

The old livery of the badge with the bolt through it is also still in use by the State Patrol.

I believe the Seattle (city) police still uses this 1970 Plymouth for special functions:

Svend > ranwhenparked 06/10/2020 at 16:18

0

In American your all told you are the best, you can do anything. Your brought up with films showing you can do anything you want if you have a gun, ‘been arrested and jailed for something you didn’t do. Simply break out of jail and kill 30 people to prove you didn’t commit fraud and then go free’, your brought up to question authority, to question everything the government does, etc... anything that isn’t American is wrong, that there wouldn’t a world because the Americans won every war they were ever in, anything different is fake news, very few people have left America, even then, those that have it’s been to either Canada or Mexico,   each of these is a small insignificant part but they all add up.

We’ve all seen the ‘don’t tread on me’ flags and protests on lockdown, ‘so what if there’s a pandemic, I’m healthy. I want to get my haircut’, it’s too much, rules are for ever yone else, not me, I’m responsible, etc...

It’s all very madd ening.

I don’t agree with everything Jim Jefferies says and does but when he did that show in T exas, he was pretty spot on.

I fear it’s really too late to change peoples minds. It’s too ingrained. 

xc90v8/I4 :( > Svend 06/10/2020 at 16:31

1

Yeah i know they have huge boots.. I was just thinking there must be a reason why they went with the estate and there must also be reason for the sedan.

Anyways the S uperb is a much better choice than the Passats I see often around here..

Svend > fintail 06/10/2020 at 16:39

1

Ye’, I’ve seen and heard what too many governors and the tangerine tyrant have said about the army.

To be honest. I feel American would actual be more peaceful if they left the army doing the policing and disbanded the police and National Guard.

Your military are well disciplined and rules and procedures are followed, the police and National Guard seem to be the ones that didn’t get into the military or left under a cloud.

The XJ6s were quite reliable and Jaguars continued to serve in the police forces.

In age order from older to newer.

Most police vehicles are bought for way below sticker price, most will only be about half the price of what a car would cost to you or me.

fintail > Svend 06/10/2020 at 16:50

1

I suppose some parts of the military here anyway are less political than the police, for sure. This area had police/sheriff officers and even leadership literally announcing their unwillingness to abide by COVID regulations, and one city police chief was just demoted for mishandling riot panic. I think State Patrol (highway police) tend to be pretty respectable, at least in my state.

For Jags, perhaps the US got the bad ones off the line, or improperly trained service departments? And don’t get me wrong, I think they are lovely cars, I have always liked the series III cars in particular, but I’ve heard many horror stories even when the cars were new. I don’t even mind XJ40 series cars, to look at anyway - I can’t imagine buying one. Nobody on this side of the pond would call an XJ6 particularly reliable, and I recall the V12 XJ-S in particular could be a nightmare as well. But they are pretty!

Very few foreign make police cars here, because of course (and the big 2.5 to their credit do a good job catering to the market).

Svend > xc90v8/I4 :( 06/10/2020 at 17:02

0

I really don’t know. I have asked on their Twitter page though.

Now you mention it, I don’t think I’ve seen a polic e VW Passat for years in person .

Svend > xc90v8/I4 :( 06/16/2020 at 14:24

0

Leicestershire police have said:

The hatchbacks were chosen for better access to our equipment during emergency calls and they’re fitted with a bespoke racking system for easy accessibility and familiarity.

As they’ve bought some Skoda Octavia liftbacks /hatchbacks.