Screenshot from the official Facebook page of the California Highway Patrol office in Bishop, California. Real or faked? You decide.
Update: We now know what really happened.
Comments by PN: My problem with this shot boils down to this: The Camaro’s position in the road doesn’t make sense. The front of the car could only have been maybe two or three feet further forward before its front valance and/or bumper would have hit that bank of soft dirt. But that would still have left the rear wheels well on the hard gravel surface. And how or why would someone drive a pristine and immaculately clean ’68 Camaro straight off the road and into a the bank? Look at the position of the front wheels. If they were turned the other direction, it might make more sense, as he would presumably have been more parallel to the road. As it is , he was clearly perpendicular to the road. Was he heading straight off the road into the desert sand?
If the Camaro had been positioned differently, I’d be a bit less skeptical. I’ve seen a lot of cars stuck in the ditch or in sand, but never in this position, where the rear wheels would never have left the road. All four wheels of the Camaro are totally on the road. Why the pushing and spinning wheels?
There’s still the issue of why the photographer isn’t helping push. or why the camera’s lens does not appear to be a phone camera, which would give a much wider angle to the background, and make it appear smaller. And the many other reasons given in the comments.
I’m strongly inclined to believe that it was either totally staged to begin with, or some kind of “rescue” did actually happen, and it was decided to commemorate/publicize it with a re-enactment of sorts. If the CHP wants to prove it otherwise, how about a dashcam video?
The reason DMAN asks whether it’s real or fake is because when he first showed it to me, it looked staged to me. I’m not sure I can put my finger on it, but it just didn’t look quite like the real thing. But DMAN thinks it’s the real thing. So maybe this should be a QOTD?
First off, the road is quite wide and looks quite solid (except for the edges), and the rear wheels of the Camaro are more than half way across the road. Yet the dust (real or photshopped) from rear wheels suggest that they’re still spinning.
And what’s creating the flying dust by the front wheels? Is this a 4WD Camaro?
Maybe this officer really did help this Camaro get out of a ditch, but then maybe they decided they might turn the event into a photo op, and “recreated” it in the middle of the road.
It just looks too perfect to me, and it’s not how cars usually get stuck in a ditch. If he had been in the shoulder, the car would likely have been parallel to the road.
One last point: who’s shooting the perfect picture? Wouldn’t everyone there have been helping push the Camaro instead of the superman CHP by himself?
I say it was a staged re-creation after the fact (if not totally staged from the get-go), and with some possible photoshop thrown in to make the dust just right.
Fake News???😱😱😱😱
This is not news.
But . . . But . . . Who would ever think to stage a publicity photo? 🙂
Fake, for all the reasons described above, plus
1. Framing is too perfect (granted, some of this could be achieved through cropping). No stray vehicles, no onlookers, etc.
2. Why a 1968 Camaro and not a Camry?
3. Camaro is way too clean for having driven to this location on a dirt road.
4. Point of view of camera appears to be 6-8 feet off the ground (likely photographer standing on ladder).
5. Size of background indicates image was shot using a camera with a long lens (not a dash cam or camera phone). Deep black of car and minimal reflections on glass indicate use of polarizing filter. Both point to the use of professional photo gear.
Could be this is indeed a professional photoshoot AND a true-to-life picture. Consider this backstory: a magazine wants to film a classic Camaro article out in the desert. They get their shots, then manage to get the car stuck while repositioning. Maybe CHP is helping hold traffic for a while and gives them a hand, or happens along and pitches in. Perhaps the photographer gets a “glamour shot ” or two out of gratitude, or just because it looks cool. Anyway, nice car, nice picture.
Ah, the double fake. That is an interesting theory. Of course, if all the CHP did was lend a push, the photo crew could have done that themselves. And why aren’t they helping out? Unless it is… a triple fake!
A photo shoot of the car is the explanation that does make some sense. I just can’t see driving a car like that down a road like this just for the heck of it and it wouldn’t be this clean even if it is a few hundred feet from a paved road.
As far as the CHP “passing by” on a dirt road, it is possible it is just a few hundred feet off of a main road that would be patrolled. Back before cell phones the thing to do would be to walk out to that main road to look for help and out in the middle of nowhere it is possible that there wasn’t an coverage for a cell phone.
This is the Alabama Hills outside Lone Pine — a network of dirt roads where many movies and commercials are filmed, for example:
I suspect this is from a commercial shoot and they had a CHPer for traffic control, the car got stuck and they helped out. This could be the actual incident or a touched-up re-creation by the crew sent to the CHP as a thank-you. The lighting on the car vs. the background looks a little off.
Staged. They can’t be known just for ticketing speeders, tinted windows, etc., they must see themselves as heroic. It’s the narcissism of the times.
Staged, for all the reasons above,++
At this moment there are 43 comments on the CHP-Bishop FB site.
While I share some of the same questions (the shoulder is on the edge; the officer is the one on the shoulder) one of the more interesting comments states commercials were being filmed in the area at that time. That could explain camera height, catching it when/if it happened, a Camaro being there, etc.
Bishop is also quite inland, closer to the Nevada border than to Fresno and with relatively few state highways in the area. Still, why an officer is out on a dirt road doesn’t have as obvious an answer compared to this having happened on US 6 or US 395.
Looking at the picture on FB (where it can be enlarged) there is dust on the officer’s pants leg and arms.
But a theory on the dust….if the Camaro is spinning in reverse, dust is thrown toward the undercarriage. Might an electric cooling fan (likely not stock, thus bigger and stouter) redistribute the dust from underneath? The spray is obviously of a different pattern and size from the front hub and to the left in the picture.
Fake? Perhaps. Or it may have experienced just enough refinement to the original picture to block a few things. It is California after all – lots of people south of there (i.e. Hollywood) have had refinements before they are put on film! 🙂
Bishop is pretty much a backwater in CA (but a very pretty area) and their CHP office likely encompasses a large swathe of territory. I can’t see that local CHP location spending much of their resources on trick/custom photography especially since their facebook page likely has much less exposure than the ones in more populated areas.
There are many dirt roads in the area, but CHP generally does not seem to patrol them. They tend to stay on the highways. Dept of Forestry, Wildlife, and BLM crews would be more likely (or other tourists, hikers, etc) to come across this guy. The shoulders are in fact soft with a very fine silty sand buildup, but the roads are still very driveable, we went all over the area many times with a ’77 Ventura and a ’69 bus when I was a kid with generally little trouble.
In the end I think some kind of weird confluence of events may have transpired for the shot to have happened as it did. Maybe there was a good reason for the CHP to be on that road, maybe they got an assistance call from the stuck driver and happened to be nearby, maybe there was a second person there with a camera, perhaps the officer told them to stand clear, maybe they climbed on the bumper of the patrol car to take the picture, who knows. But as far as a publicity photos go, I just don’t see the CHP having the time or budget for it as either a staged event or recreation and if they did it would likely have been spend in a jurisdiction with greater exposure.
Either way it it a good picture with a great message that some police are still out there in fact assisting citizens in their time of need. So congratulations and thanks to Officer Chris Bol are in order!
If this car had been in the ditch and had just gained traction and started to move, then the front tire might have been photographed where the rear tire had been kicking up dust, giving the illusion that the front tire is kicking up dust.
Agree its an American Muscle car photoshoot, there is a TV show on Speed TV called American Muscle Car TV. The car was probably enclosed trailered to the location, thus the reason for the car being so clean.
CHP probably investigated what was going on and decided to ask for a little public relations photo shot. Who in their right mind would be driving a restored Camaro on a crappy dirt road?
^This. The car was enclosed trailered to the location and, while shooting, some CHP happened by wanting to know what they were doing. To suck up to the cop and keep him happy, the guys asked the cop, “Hey, you want a cool photo to take back to your cop buddies?”, and there you have it.
I think it’s real but looks fake, like all HDR shot/edited photos do. I don’t feel the dust is coming off the front wheels, it looks more fine and dispersed like a dust cloud left by the rear moments before, whereas the dust coming off the driven rear wheels looks darker and more clumpy, and is also spinning around unlike the front
Now whether it’s staged or not, I’m a little more cynical about given the fact that it’s a mint 68 Camaro SS. If real I would guess it’s part of some tv/movie/commercial/magazine/internet shoot and CHP was on site for some reason, maybe to block the traffic for the shoot.
I’m thinkin a scene out of “CHIPS” that hit the cutting room floor
The last time I was in Death Valley National Park, I encountered a CHP unit (Ford Expedition, not Explorer or Crown Vic) on a rough dirt road about 40 miles from the nearest pavement. A few miles further on I saw the remains of a Ford SuperDuty rollover. When I reached my destination, a camping area a few miles down the road, NPS rangers were talking with witnesses, and I was told that the CHP I had seen was taking the driver and passenger to the county jail. Long way of saying that in the Bishop and Lone Pine areas, CHP does get out into the dirt. Though they more often seem to sit on those long stretches of 395 where triple-digit speeds used to be common before they started using radar in the eighties.
Long way of saying that in the Bishop and Lone Pine areas, CHP does get out into the dirt.
Well, obviously someone saw the rolled truck and called 911, right? Are you suggesting the CHP was patrolling a distant back road in Death Valley and just happened to come on this accident scene? Me thinks not.
In all my years of driving back roads I’ve never ever seen a highway patrol in CA, Oregon or any other state unless they were responding to an incident. They are spread way too thin financially to waste their time “patrolling” the huge expanse of back roads in the western states. They come if they’re called.
Frankly, I could see it being an issue if one of them was way off a dead dirt road “patrolling” and the police were needed for an accident. It would be irresponsible, actually. They need to be spread out along the highways to be able to respond quickly.
Agree it can’t be real,not because the scenario or details are implausible. Anything’s possible. Besides all the other evidence, I just dont think any owner in his right mind would subject his perfect 68 Camaro SS with perfect black paint to kicked up gravel even if he was stuck. Very careful towing would be the way to go.
My money is it’s a real photo of a parked car and a highway patrolman pretending to push it, dust photoshopped in.
I know that it’s real. II am a 22 year veteran of the California Highway Patrol. I have knowledge of this incident. It is well documented. The Camaro was approximately 6 feet off the roadway on the soft dirt shoulder area. This photo was taken by the passenger The Camaro is still in reverse and the dirt in the air at the front wheels was the dirt from the rear wheels as they were rotating and slipping traction moments earlier. You guys really need a lesson in physics.
I thought it was real until people started putting doubts in my head. This looks like Movie Flat Road, not far from pavement and still used for TV shows and commercials. Anyway, it’s a nice picture and if I ever need to get out of a pickle in Inyo County I’ll hope Officer Bol is on duty.
I still think it’s staged until someone can actually prove it otherwise. Got some dash cam or body cam video?
6′ off the roadway? Where? there’s no 6′ of soft shoulder there.
I hate to say this, but it’s not the first time I’ve been duped by the police. Or the first time the police has tried to dupe the public. Too many aspects of this look staged. Can you prove it? How do we know you are who you say you are?
Call me a skeptic, but I’ve learned to be one after 65 years and a few less than honest experiences with the police along the way. This looks staged. Good PR, but faked until proven otherwise.
Hi Mr. Niedermeyer. I respect your “Doubting Thomas” beliefs. Nothing wrong with that, for sure. As for me, I posted front / back photos of my CHP I.D. card. Each officer is assigned a specific beat within the CHP Area at shift briefing. The dirt roads may or may not have a beat number. The roads that do not have a beat number are considered secondary roads and per CHP general orders, “should be patrolled at least once during the officers shift. Often times In remote CHP Area Offices, the officers assigned to line beats (example: SR-395) will log a high number of patrol time checking the secondary roads for motorists in need of assistance, as in the case of the driver and passenger of the Camaro. I had a couple of occasions where nothing was going on along my line beat in the Parker Dam Resident Post area, and started patrolling on a dirt road only to come up on a large transfer of illicit narcotics. The “bad guys” thought that there would not be any cops driving around in the remote desert. CHP officers assigned to remote areas of California work alone with the closest back up being 45 to 60 minutes away. Resident Post Officers are considered the “Best of the Best” by command and supervision personnel. The officer in the photo was able to dislodge the tires from the loose dirt and sand while the driver hit the gas in reverse. What the public does not know is why the occupants of the Camaro were out there in the first place. The photo is as real as I am.
My vote this was staged and photoshopped. I can say that no MSP trooper would put themselves in a position to be get injured by flying debris.
I’m with the staged group on this, for the reasons Paul and Tom identify. There are no tracks or impressions on the undergrowth in front of the car. Why is the driver looking toward the camera and not the policeman
That doesn’t mean something didn’t happen and get a re-imagined for a bit of PR/driver awareness work.