It's a question that i want know, i see that some americans police vehicles have a difference between others, like the car model or the light (strobes or light bar) and principally the painting (the painting on those police cars are amazing).

 

So, this is the question, no laws about police vehicles?

 

Here in Brazil, it's necessary to have ONLY red light bars and the state symbol in the car and some others identifications. 

 

And a tip: here we dont have ANY police car model, the state have to buy a civilian model and other company have to modify it.

 

(sorry for the english)

Laws on police lighting vary from State to State. There is no real law on police cars except some states have lighting laws, such as some cities such as Chicago are required by law to run blue lighting. New York State has laws for firefighters on POV lighting, same as Pennsylvania (If someone else knows more on those light laws feel free to correct me) 

Edited September 3, 201411 yr by OfficerMonroe

As for lights, every state in the US has different laws regarding what is required. In New York, police vehicles can only have red and white forward facing lights; and red, white, blue, and/or amber rear facing. I'm sure the same applies to liveries, but I'm unsure of any specific laws.

As previously mentioned in this topic, laws on what's permitted on different police vehicles vary from state-to-state in the United States of America.

 

I think it would be a little boring if all police cars looked the same in such a large country.

 

This livery would be particularly annoying to see everywhere (not to mention the car...):

In America, there really isn't any "police car model" per say either. There's only "Police Package" or "Police Interceptor" which are almost entirely a civilian vehicle, with some minor differences.

 

Generally departments will purchase from a company, (In my state it's a company called MHQ) and they'll do everything to the department's request. They'll install lighting, paint, equipment ect. 

 

There really isn't any standard, each company has their own way and each department has their own requests as well. With that said, generally lights are Red+Blue or all Blue. 

The only laws that vary from state to state apply to the lighting it's left up to each department what design and lighting is used in there cars, for example Tupelo MS. Had a contest in the schools for the next design of their cars. In N.Y. The commissioner one day saw a car with police on it doing something stupid and thought it was an nypd car. He soon realised it was another department so he ordered all NYPD cars to have the letters NYPD POLICE on the front and rear of the cars so they can be identified easier as nypd cars.

The only laws that vary from state to state apply to the lighting it's left up to each department what design and lighting is used in there cars, for example Tupelo MS. Had a contest in the schools for the next design of their cars. In N.Y. The commissioner one day saw a car with police on it doing something stupid and thought it was an nypd car. He soon realised it was another department so he ordered all NYPD cars to have the letters NYPD POLICE on the front and rear of the cars so they can be identified easier as nypd cars.

That's something I never knew, just learned something new. I always wondered why they had that on the front all of a sudden.

In california there has to be red and blue lights with a solid red light that doesn't flash and all traffic enforcement vehicles in california have to have white front doors, so either all white or white doors or just white front doors

That's something I never knew, just learned something new. I always wondered why they had that on the front all of a sudden.

Yeah it was commissioner Kelly

California must have black and white PD vehicles (although there are exceptions), steady burn red light must be front facing. CHP actually had a huge dispute with the Geek Squad from Best Buy because their vehicles were black and white to the point where the state felt it was too close to the PD vehicle codes. LOL! 

California must have black and white PD vehicles (although there are exceptions), steady burn red light must be front facing. CHP actually had a huge dispute with the Geek Squad from Best Buy because their vehicles were black and white to the point where the state felt it was too close to the PD vehicle codes. LOL! 

 

This. When I was like 10 yrs old and Geek Squad just started using vehicles, I ALWAYS thought they were cops. Haha!

The only laws that vary from state to state apply to the lighting it's left up to each department what design and lighting is used in there cars, for example Tupelo MS. Had a contest in the schools for the next design of their cars. In N.Y. The commissioner one day saw a car with police on it doing something stupid and thought it was an nypd car. He soon realised it was another department so he ordered all NYPD cars to have the letters NYPD POLICE on the front and rear of the cars so they can be identified easier as nypd cars.

 

Do you have a source and/or know what other department has a similar paintjob?

I would really like to see the similarities!

I know in certain areas there are agencies with similar livery designs. The most obvious place is to look at California where most agencies have black and white cars with only minor changes to the decals. In Florida pretty much all the sheriff's offices run white cars with green stripes. In Massachusetts it seems like all the city agencies run the same paint scheme as Boston PD. In New Jersey there is an agency that looks similar to NYPD, obviously when you look at them they are clearly not NYPD but I can see if you were to quickly get a glance at it you might mistake it for an NYPD cruiser.

 

Union City, NJ

http://www.policecarwebsite.net/fc/rwcar4j/unioncity.html

 

Or NYC Sheriff which is identical to NYPD except their cars say "SHERIFF" across the side.

http://www.policecarwebsite.net/fc/ny/nyc.html

California, land of the black-and-whites, although I never knew that was in the regulations (most likely Title XIII?).  There are a few agencies in California which don't have a black-and-white scheme (like Irvine), what is their exception?

 

And yes, Title XIII states you have to have a steady-burn front-facing red light at the minimum, but there are more to Title XIII too, such as how fast a light can flash (60 or 120 flashes per second), how bright a light has to be, how high or how low a light can be, even down to the siren tones that are allowed (wail and yelp only).

 

As far as cars that look similar to the NYPD, one has to look no further than Red Bank, NJ.

Edited September 3, 201411 yr by sixium

MA agencies *definitely* don't all use the Boston PD scheme: there are a handful that do, but most city agencies appear (according to policecarwebsite.net) to run black-and-whites.

Some places like Massachusetts use all blue lights for their police cars. Places like New York state (appear) to have all red.

Where I live it's a free for all. Most towns use red/blue, some use all blue, state police use all red. Federal agencies (DHS FPS) trump state laws. So basically you could see a federal police car running code with red and blue in a state saying you can only use one color. 

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as livery goes there isn't really any law that dictates what happens with that. 

Edited September 3, 201411 yr by xmusicman92x

In MA police can only use red lights in they are rear facing, and fire departments can only use blue lights if they are rear facing

Do you have a source and/or know what other department has a similar paintjob?

I would really like to see the similarities!

Hospital police who are not police at all just security

https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/jag9889/2564592301/

Edited September 3, 201411 yr by gatekeeper

Hospital police who are not police at all just security

https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/jag9889/2564592301/

Incorrect: The NYC Department of Health and Hospitals Police is a law enforcement agency, and its officers are sworn peace officers, not security guards.

Incorrect: The NYC Department of Health and Hospitals Police is a law enforcement agency, and its officers are sworn peace officers, not security guards.

I understand that they are peace officers and are listed in the cpl but they do not carry out most law enforcement duties so I personally do not consider them law enforcement