Never? Our town in California has several new F150 patrol units. To go with their Tahoes. Explorer and Crown Vic Interceptors, and Honda ST1300 bikes: all ideally suited for our fairly dense urban environment where the roads are paved and the highest speed limit is maybe 45 mph.
The percentage of pickups in police use is typically very small and specialized relative to overall fleets, either currently or historically. And you know that, of course. I knew someone would brilliantly have an example, to show me wrong, using never as a figure of speech. Too late to edit. Of course border patrol and others use them, but overall, they remain rare on public roads.
You’re being sarcastic, right? Your town/city seems like the perfect use case for Ford Transit Connect police units along with maybe a couple of KLR650s and a few bicycles and/or more foot-based policing. Once something gets onto HWY 17 or 1, a call to the CHP is in order.
The ST1300s are the most egregious seeming overkill for an urban motorcycle patrol. (but perhaps make good sense for CHP or the UKs motorway patrol etc.) Followed closely by the full dress Harleys used (or used to be used?) in San Francisco and a few other places). If something like a Crown Vic or Tahoe is “needed” to run over curbs or medians then how is a Harley or ST better than a KLR or whatever?
We have a few pickups as well but they aren’t the main units. Slower, less fuel efficient, poorer handling, probably more expensive, and likely more difficult to force a perp up and into a truck than down and into a sedan or an Explorer (watch your head…), all seem to make sense as to reasons why.
I think the only time I can seem to recall one used in the LA area as this one seems to be marked (albeit with overlapping agencies) is on CHiPs when a motorcycle needed to be recovered. Although I recall seeing a cruiser with a trailer used as well for that…
The irony here is I see pickups in LEO duty all the time. Ford and GM both make police versions of their trucks. They’re not meant to necessarily replace cruisers, but they have their place (especially in rual communities).
And I corrected myself above, so I’ll repeat again below just for you. What more do you want? The same guy that routinely makes blanket statements some cars are garbage. Unless they are Fords, of course. 🙂
“The percentage of pickups in police use is typically very small and specialized relative to overall fleets, either currently or historically. And you know that, of course. I knew someone would brilliantly have an example, to show me wrong, using never as a figure of speech. Too late to edit. Of course border patrol and others use them, but overall, they remain rare on public roads.”
I later figured many would think I obviously meant as primary day to day enforcement in most regions. Which is what I meant. But of course, John is here to set the record (and me) straight.
Uhmm, the RCMP use them extensively here in rural parts of Western Canada. Drop by some of those stations and half their fleets may be pickups. Granted, as a % of the total RCMP fleet they would be far outnumbered by cars and SUVs, but still a fair number.
Yes, back in the day law enforcement in Canada never used pickup trucks. This has changed in recent years as pickups have been used as marked and unmarked for traffic enforcement and use in rural areas or remote regions for law enforcement here in western Canada.
No surprise the big three or Ford and General Motors have developed option packages for the trucks suitable for police use.
Here in Ontario, conservation officers all have them. I’ve yet to see pickups used by either the OPP or Sûreté du Québec police for regular patrol and enforcement on provincial highways. That may change given the police packages, and impressive performance some offer.
This example in the Netherlands, would have worked better without the bold white all caps lettering on the truck bed. It clearly doesn’t look authentic. Like it’s trying too hard to further convince people it’s a police pickup.
I’ve got a feeling that authenticity wasn’t high on the priority list. Neither was creating a tribute for that matter, as Dan says below. Now just having fun and tongue-in-cheek, on the other hand…
Convincing is out of the question, as our police SUVs and pickups look like these:
I meant convincing as a late 1970s LAPD or CHP unit. They went to a fair amount of effort making the ‘HIGHWAY PATROL’ graphics for the doors. It would have worked better without the white bed lettering, if too conservative for the owner’s liking.
It looks like someone had an old truck, an old light bar, and a box of stickers lying around. Obviously just a fake police vehicle, with no historical connection. There is no overlap between the LAPD and the CHP, looking at the insignia on the doors, I would have gone with the Highway Patrol theme and deleted the reference to the LAPD. My local police jurisdiction has a few marked and emergency light equipped pick ups, I suppose that they are used for “out of the ordinary” events.
This is kind of like the toy ’65 Riviera that was sold in the ’60’s with police equipment and markings. I have wanted one for a long time. I finally bought one at a fair price this year.
Brilliant. Thanks for this rare example I already knew existed.
Now show me some pickup trucks actually doing day to day law enforcement on freeways and streets. If you read the full threat before posting, I knew by saying ‘never’ there would be ‘pile on’ posts like yours.
Not trying to be a “told you so”. Also, the truck I posted looks a lot better than the one at the top of the page, IMHO. The CHP knows how to consistently give their vehicles a great visual presentation, combined with good suitability for the intended use. If one is going to do up a fake one, he may as well get it closer to right, or at least get it a bit more good-looking overall. That’s another reason for my post. I think that real CHP truck I posted is one heck of a good looking rig.
That said, I understand that these trucks are generally used for accident investigations and commercial vehicle inspections, which is definitely an aspect of law enforcement 🙂
There was a short period of time, about twenty years ago, when the CHP used a few full-sized pickups for freeway patrol duty. Some were black-and-white, and some were all white. They had the lettering and logos on the doors, and the red and blue lights were mounted on some sort of auxiliary front bumper bar, instead of up on the roof. They were extremely difficult to pick out in the freeway traffic, especially as there were so many full-sized pickups on the highway, as there still are today. It caused a bit of a stir back in the day, and seeing a car pulled over along the side of the road, being written up by a cop driving an all-white pickup, caused me to slow it down just a bit, at the time.
It was a short-lived experiment. No doubt the calculus didn’t quite work out for the CHP, after review. The CHP is always trying different ways to do their work, and most of them have a fairly short shelf life. It seems that the basic highly visible and powerful full-size cruisers consistently work the best for them.
Not trying to stir the pot, Daniel, my apologies if you took it as my trying to be a jerk about it. I am a big fan of first responder vehicles, how they are configured, and how they are presented to the public.
Lol, so you knew by using the word, you’d trigger people who have seen plenty of trucks in service. Now you’re pissed off about it? Sounds like you got exactly what you were looking for.
No problem at all Dutch 1960. My apologies for my snarky reply.
I actually immediately deleted my comment as I didn’t want to stir the pot over nothing. But I guess some editor restored it, thinking it was deleted in error? Frustrating shortcoming of this WordPress template.
And I was too late to change my original comment to remove the word ‘never’ in my original post. As I knew it was a mistake (and inaccurate) to make such an extreme opinion. Even if pickups for law enforcement remain rare. So, I was expecting plenty of ‘pile on’ comments just like JohnTaurus. Ford fan boy he is, stepping up to the plate. All a pain in the ass really, over nothing.
Pickups are disappearing from police fleets here and really only the CVST used them anyway to transport portable scales, everything is being replaced by Skoda station wagons in various colours marked and not.
I’ll cut the owner some slack on authenticity. I am sure there is the occasional American who gets the urge to put on old VW in German police livery or turn an old Peugeot into the French version, with probably less authenticity than we see here.
But what does it tell us about the basic truck that someone in Europe needs to dress it up to make it interesting. 🙂
Interesting how tastes vary. Squarebody GM trucks have long been one of my favorite vehicle shapes, and I’ll take them in any of their many guises from 1973 to 1991.
On the authenticity front… eh.. I don’t know the intricacies of LAPD livery over the years, but performing a quick googlectomy revealed that Los Angeles didn’t roll out 911 service until January, 1984. The truck is a 1977. I suppose a special use vehicle might stick around for seven years, but it still doesn’t seem quite “right”.
In Western Canada, the majority of Law Enforcement vehicles are now Ford Explorers and F150 crew cabs.
In the major cities, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver and rural.
The cop car 4 door Charger never really took hold out here to replace the Crown Vics.
Actually not too far off the mark. Here’s a Ranger for perspective. Maybe the featured truck was a “Highway Helper” and used to assist stranded motorists with a flat tire or that had run out of gas.
Im betting pickups are more common in some very rural areas like southern and west Texas, lots of unpaved roads. The Border Patrol LOVES their F150 Raptors, they are way faster than any other vehicle in the open desert terrain and hold up to a beating better than any other truck or SUV in their fleet
Very interesting, Johannes. The door graphics and light bar look period correct, the bed lettering does not, both in terms of font and the reference to 911. If it happened to be correct instead of the “tribute” that I suspect, it would likely be one of the earliest vehicles to mention 911.
I like the explanation of a roadside assistance vehicle, though one of those probably would’ve had a topper of some sort and no light bar. In recent years the majority of law enforcement vehicles here in Michigan have been SUVs. The only place I see pickups is for law enforcement on trails in state land, and those are extended cabs at a minimum. Other than a subcompact car, it’s hard for me to think of a less practical vehicle for police patrol than a regular cab pickup.
Common to see California Highway Patrol pickup trucks. They are usually used for commercial vehicle enforcement, officers conducting random roadside truck/bus safety checks and fleet garage inspections. They carry a lot of equipment in those trucks such as tools and portable scales which is why they usually have camper shells on them.
Where I live in Bend Oregon the city police and county sheriff use pickups for various jobs. Some are code enforcement or service vehicles with a canopy on the back , others are general use patrol vehicles with just a bed cover. I haven’t seen a state trooper in a pickup but there are only a few state police out here and no Interstate highways. On a federal level the Forest Service and BLM rangers mostly use pickups with occasional SUVs like the K9 unit parked a few blocks away. The Deputy Sheriff in my neighborhood alternates his take home vehicle, sometimes a Dodge Charger sometimes a Ram crew cab.
Cool find and photo Johannes.
The irony here is that you never see pickup trucks used by law enforcement.
Never? Our town in California has several new F150 patrol units. To go with their Tahoes. Explorer and Crown Vic Interceptors, and Honda ST1300 bikes: all ideally suited for our fairly dense urban environment where the roads are paved and the highest speed limit is maybe 45 mph.
The percentage of pickups in police use is typically very small and specialized relative to overall fleets, either currently or historically. And you know that, of course. I knew someone would brilliantly have an example, to show me wrong, using never as a figure of speech. Too late to edit. Of course border patrol and others use them, but overall, they remain rare on public roads.
You’re being sarcastic, right? Your town/city seems like the perfect use case for Ford Transit Connect police units along with maybe a couple of KLR650s and a few bicycles and/or more foot-based policing. Once something gets onto HWY 17 or 1, a call to the CHP is in order.
The ST1300s are the most egregious seeming overkill for an urban motorcycle patrol. (but perhaps make good sense for CHP or the UKs motorway patrol etc.) Followed closely by the full dress Harleys used (or used to be used?) in San Francisco and a few other places). If something like a Crown Vic or Tahoe is “needed” to run over curbs or medians then how is a Harley or ST better than a KLR or whatever?
We have a few pickups as well but they aren’t the main units. Slower, less fuel efficient, poorer handling, probably more expensive, and likely more difficult to force a perp up and into a truck than down and into a sedan or an Explorer (watch your head…), all seem to make sense as to reasons why.
I think the only time I can seem to recall one used in the LA area as this one seems to be marked (albeit with overlapping agencies) is on CHiPs when a motorcycle needed to be recovered. Although I recall seeing a cruiser with a trailer used as well for that…
The irony here is I see pickups in LEO duty all the time. Ford and GM both make police versions of their trucks. They’re not meant to necessarily replace cruisers, but they have their place (especially in rual communities).
And I corrected myself above, so I’ll repeat again below just for you. What more do you want? The same guy that routinely makes blanket statements some cars are garbage. Unless they are Fords, of course. 🙂
“The percentage of pickups in police use is typically very small and specialized relative to overall fleets, either currently or historically. And you know that, of course. I knew someone would brilliantly have an example, to show me wrong, using never as a figure of speech. Too late to edit. Of course border patrol and others use them, but overall, they remain rare on public roads.”
I later figured many would think I obviously meant as primary day to day enforcement in most regions. Which is what I meant. But of course, John is here to set the record (and me) straight.
Uhmm, the RCMP use them extensively here in rural parts of Western Canada. Drop by some of those stations and half their fleets may be pickups. Granted, as a % of the total RCMP fleet they would be far outnumbered by cars and SUVs, but still a fair number.
Yes, back in the day law enforcement in Canada never used pickup trucks. This has changed in recent years as pickups have been used as marked and unmarked for traffic enforcement and use in rural areas or remote regions for law enforcement here in western Canada.
No surprise the big three or Ford and General Motors have developed option packages for the trucks suitable for police use.
Here in Ontario, conservation officers all have them. I’ve yet to see pickups used by either the OPP or Sûreté du Québec police for regular patrol and enforcement on provincial highways. That may change given the police packages, and impressive performance some offer.
This example in the Netherlands, would have worked better without the bold white all caps lettering on the truck bed. It clearly doesn’t look authentic. Like it’s trying too hard to further convince people it’s a police pickup.
I’ve got a feeling that authenticity wasn’t high on the priority list. Neither was creating a tribute for that matter, as Dan says below. Now just having fun and tongue-in-cheek, on the other hand…
Convincing is out of the question, as our police SUVs and pickups look like these:
I meant convincing as a late 1970s LAPD or CHP unit. They went to a fair amount of effort making the ‘HIGHWAY PATROL’ graphics for the doors. It would have worked better without the white bed lettering, if too conservative for the owner’s liking.
Interesting choice for a boot licker tribute. And poorly done at that. Wonder that inspired this, especially in the Netherlands.
It looks like someone had an old truck, an old light bar, and a box of stickers lying around. Obviously just a fake police vehicle, with no historical connection. There is no overlap between the LAPD and the CHP, looking at the insignia on the doors, I would have gone with the Highway Patrol theme and deleted the reference to the LAPD. My local police jurisdiction has a few marked and emergency light equipped pick ups, I suppose that they are used for “out of the ordinary” events.
This is kind of like the toy ’65 Riviera that was sold in the ’60’s with police equipment and markings. I have wanted one for a long time. I finally bought one at a fair price this year.
That must be the chief’s car!
Here you go.
Brilliant. Thanks for this rare example I already knew existed.
Now show me some pickup trucks actually doing day to day law enforcement on freeways and streets. If you read the full threat before posting, I knew by saying ‘never’ there would be ‘pile on’ posts like yours.
Not trying to be a “told you so”. Also, the truck I posted looks a lot better than the one at the top of the page, IMHO. The CHP knows how to consistently give their vehicles a great visual presentation, combined with good suitability for the intended use. If one is going to do up a fake one, he may as well get it closer to right, or at least get it a bit more good-looking overall. That’s another reason for my post. I think that real CHP truck I posted is one heck of a good looking rig.
That said, I understand that these trucks are generally used for accident investigations and commercial vehicle inspections, which is definitely an aspect of law enforcement 🙂
There was a short period of time, about twenty years ago, when the CHP used a few full-sized pickups for freeway patrol duty. Some were black-and-white, and some were all white. They had the lettering and logos on the doors, and the red and blue lights were mounted on some sort of auxiliary front bumper bar, instead of up on the roof. They were extremely difficult to pick out in the freeway traffic, especially as there were so many full-sized pickups on the highway, as there still are today. It caused a bit of a stir back in the day, and seeing a car pulled over along the side of the road, being written up by a cop driving an all-white pickup, caused me to slow it down just a bit, at the time.
It was a short-lived experiment. No doubt the calculus didn’t quite work out for the CHP, after review. The CHP is always trying different ways to do their work, and most of them have a fairly short shelf life. It seems that the basic highly visible and powerful full-size cruisers consistently work the best for them.
Not trying to stir the pot, Daniel, my apologies if you took it as my trying to be a jerk about it. I am a big fan of first responder vehicles, how they are configured, and how they are presented to the public.
Lol, so you knew by using the word, you’d trigger people who have seen plenty of trucks in service. Now you’re pissed off about it? Sounds like you got exactly what you were looking for.
https://www.google.com/search?q=state+trooper+f150&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiAz9P664r6AhUi81MKHTTbB_YQ2-cCegQIABAC&oq=state+trooper+f150&gs_lcp=ChJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWcQAzoFCAAQogRQtwtYuBJglhdoAHAAeACAAc8BiAGVEJIBBTAuOC4zmAEAoAEBwAEB&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=7tUcY4CgGKLmzwK0tp-wDw&bih=643&biw=360&client=ms-android-samsung-rvo1&prmd=sinv
No problem at all Dutch 1960. My apologies for my snarky reply.
I actually immediately deleted my comment as I didn’t want to stir the pot over nothing. But I guess some editor restored it, thinking it was deleted in error? Frustrating shortcoming of this WordPress template.
And I was too late to change my original comment to remove the word ‘never’ in my original post. As I knew it was a mistake (and inaccurate) to make such an extreme opinion. Even if pickups for law enforcement remain rare. So, I was expecting plenty of ‘pile on’ comments just like JohnTaurus. Ford fan boy he is, stepping up to the plate. All a pain in the ass really, over nothing.
Pickups are disappearing from police fleets here and really only the CVST used them anyway to transport portable scales, everything is being replaced by Skoda station wagons in various colours marked and not.
I’ll cut the owner some slack on authenticity. I am sure there is the occasional American who gets the urge to put on old VW in German police livery or turn an old Peugeot into the French version, with probably less authenticity than we see here.
But what does it tell us about the basic truck that someone in Europe needs to dress it up to make it interesting. 🙂
Interesting how tastes vary. Squarebody GM trucks have long been one of my favorite vehicle shapes, and I’ll take them in any of their many guises from 1973 to 1991.
On the authenticity front… eh.. I don’t know the intricacies of LAPD livery over the years, but performing a quick googlectomy revealed that Los Angeles didn’t roll out 911 service until January, 1984. The truck is a 1977. I suppose a special use vehicle might stick around for seven years, but it still doesn’t seem quite “right”.
Officer Junior Brown might have been driving a pickup ……
https://youtu.be/x_wLVCLPx0M
In Western Canada, the majority of Law Enforcement vehicles are now Ford Explorers and F150 crew cabs.
In the major cities, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver and rural.
The cop car 4 door Charger never really took hold out here to replace the Crown Vics.
Actually not too far off the mark. Here’s a Ranger for perspective. Maybe the featured truck was a “Highway Helper” and used to assist stranded motorists with a flat tire or that had run out of gas.
Im betting pickups are more common in some very rural areas like southern and west Texas, lots of unpaved roads. The Border Patrol LOVES their F150 Raptors, they are way faster than any other vehicle in the open desert terrain and hold up to a beating better than any other truck or SUV in their fleet
Very interesting, Johannes. The door graphics and light bar look period correct, the bed lettering does not, both in terms of font and the reference to 911. If it happened to be correct instead of the “tribute” that I suspect, it would likely be one of the earliest vehicles to mention 911.
I like the explanation of a roadside assistance vehicle, though one of those probably would’ve had a topper of some sort and no light bar. In recent years the majority of law enforcement vehicles here in Michigan have been SUVs. The only place I see pickups is for law enforcement on trails in state land, and those are extended cabs at a minimum. Other than a subcompact car, it’s hard for me to think of a less practical vehicle for police patrol than a regular cab pickup.
Common to see California Highway Patrol pickup trucks. They are usually used for commercial vehicle enforcement, officers conducting random roadside truck/bus safety checks and fleet garage inspections. They carry a lot of equipment in those trucks such as tools and portable scales which is why they usually have camper shells on them.
Where I live in Bend Oregon the city police and county sheriff use pickups for various jobs. Some are code enforcement or service vehicles with a canopy on the back , others are general use patrol vehicles with just a bed cover. I haven’t seen a state trooper in a pickup but there are only a few state police out here and no Interstate highways. On a federal level the Forest Service and BLM rangers mostly use pickups with occasional SUVs like the K9 unit parked a few blocks away. The Deputy Sheriff in my neighborhood alternates his take home vehicle, sometimes a Dodge Charger sometimes a Ram crew cab.