Many of the police vehicles I've seen use the Black & White texture, where they have white in the middle and black on the front and back. I've seen it in many of the local agencies and everywhere else, and I'm wondering why this style is used so much?

Well, if you buy a large amount of all black Interceptors from Ford or Chargers from Dodge, instead of full vehicle wraps or decals, they just need to buy doors and lettering. If they use a white roof, then the roof as well. When my department changed from white with full side graphics to just doors with the badge and lettering for the trunk, it was for the cost of graphics.

I see why they would do that, and since so many vehicles are like that I tend to prefer vehicles with a different texture.

My guess is because what civilian car is black and white. I think that the paint colors just stand out from the normal single colored cars. Just my $0.02

My guess is because what civilian car is black and white. I think that the paint colors just stand out from the normal single colored cars. Just my $0.02

 

But, it would be interesting to see a black and white civillan car.

But, it would be interesting to see a black and white civillan car.

 

I mean, I've seen retired fuzz-wagons that civvies own that are black and white, but never a right-out-of-the-factory police car B&W paint job. lol

Their reverting back over to the old-school cars.

Cost was a huge influence.

But the main reason is when PDs decided that they needed to change their attitude to community policing, the B&W liveries went with it. That was when police could beat you with knightsticks and nothing would happen. They realized society was scared of police so they changed to community policing, and decided B&W cars still had that fear effect, which is why they went all white with "comforting" designs; psychologically, it's more comforting to society than B&W.

Well now they're too "soft" and most of society doesn't even respect them, so they're trying to instill that fear slightly again by changing back to B&W.

I'd rather go back to the days when police could shoot a fleeing felon, or beat you if you run from them.

Based on a quick search I just did, I found that the reason black and white is a common police car design is because it was a way to recognize a patrol car from far away. This makes sense to me seeing that back before we had all the fancy police lights and decals most agencies had little to no markings on their cars, just a simple light that sometimes was only facing front. Look at most of the police cars from the 1940s and 1950s, they had little or no decals to identify them as police cars and had one, maybe two lights mounted on them.

I read somewhere that the US Federal Government sets out livery choices (i.e. black and white) if a city wants federal funding for their police departments. The supposed reasoning is they want all police/sheriff forces to have 'unified' liveries.

 

Cheers.

I read somewhere that the US Federal Government sets out livery choices (i.e. black and white) if a city wants federal funding for their police departments. The supposed reasoning is they want all police/sheriff forces to have 'unified' liveries.

 

Cheers.

Hope that ain't true  Part of my love towards the US law enforcement is the diversity of colors, badges, lighting standards, and all that small details that matter...

I think it probably has something to do with tradition.  Many things in public safety fields (fire, EMS, law enforcement) are based on tradition.  I might be wrong, but as a law enforcement officer myself, I can tell you that almost everything we do (at least in my dept.) is deeply rooted in tradition.

I read something somewhere awhile back that it had something to do with the Federal Government, I wish I could remember what thread it was but it was on this site last year I think.

 

EDIT: Lt Phil Bellic cleared my answer up.

Edited November 12, 201411 yr by Slimory

It's because most police want their cars to look the same style so that everyone knows that its a police car. Its more obvious and it leads to being safer from fake cops pulling people over.

It's because most police want their cars to look the same style so that everyone knows that its a police car. Its more obvious and it leads to being safer from fake cops pulling people over.

 

Um, no

Probably cheaper for fleets. I guess buy a s***load of cars, in black. Then all you have to graphic wise is paint the doors and maybe the roof white. Some don't even paint the cars but do a wrap on the doors and roof to save even more money. After that add the rest of the stuff

Recently, it was recommended by the DHS for law enforcement agencies to adopt the traditional B&W style livery. New Mexico seems to love it, as many of their departments have changed their livery in the past few years to B&W.

 

Also, if you can get it right, you can make a cop car look really intimidating. Just look at LVMPD's cars:

 

Black and white increases the visibility of police cars and makes them easier to recognize.

Source

I read somewhere that the US Federal Government sets out livery choices (i.e. black and white) if a city wants federal funding for their police departments. The supposed reasoning is they want all police/sheriff forces to have 'unified' liveries.

 

Cheers.

This is absolutely false. Lots of departments get federal funding; many do not use black and white vehicles. The Connecticut State Police get federal grants and have solid grey vehicles with no markings whatsoever. The NYPD get grants and have white-with-blue-markings. The Boston police get grants and have white-with-blue-and-grey-stripes. At most, there might be particular grants which it's easier to get with a black and white livery (or grants to *establish* a black and white livery), but there's no general requirement for federal funding that police cars have a certain livery (most funding has nothing to do with vehicles, and it would be utterly ridiculous to require something random for an unrelated grant). And the sorts of small departments which would be influenced by that more than others are already the sort of department that's unlikely to have its own distinctive livery; they're likely to go with what's cheap. From what I can tell, black-and-white is getting cheaper, which is actually a big factor in becoming more common.