Overhaulin'

Why do cops use only modified commercial vehicles for their patrol cars?

Like the new Dodge Charger cop cars here in MA? Also how come the Statie's here use the old Ford's - when they are the one's more often on the highways!

Public Comments

1. A very small percentage of an officer's time is spent in pursuits, so specialty cars like the Charger Hemi are of limited value. They are also more expensive to maintain. The Ford Crown Victoria has been around for a long time, and it reasonably priced. It has the widest variety of accessories available, so it can be easily customized for each departments needs.
2. Individual cops do not go down to the dealer and buy single patrol cars. Cities, counties and states buy fleets of cars, and choose based on the cost to the taxpayer and many other factors.
3. Actually there is one company that is developing a from the ground up police car. They have run into problems since urban, suburban, highway and rural policing are all very different and all call for different modification sin the vehicles. Motor maintenance people like using the regular mod vehicles since parts are always available and no special training is needed.
4. Police agencies buy two different types of cars, pursuit and residental. With residental, they are responding to domestics and other problems that dont require a super fast car. If a cop is stationed in an area with high pursuit possibilites (highway) they are issued the cars like the charger. With all the new cars out today the police need to keep up and so buy cars like this. Dodge offers the police package on the charger that comes juiced up out of the factory. Its not very expensive and the police dont need to do anything to the vehicle except add their computers and so forth, so its an obvious choice. In law enforcement the police always have a high potential to lose in any situation, its one vs. one or one vs. many, so anything they can do to keep the upper hand they will.