Comments on: How to spot an unmarked police vehicle (Virginia, USA)

By: b

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 05:49:03 +0000

i was just followd by at first a white blazer clean and gangster i didnt even know for the first 5 miles till i saw the exempt then changd lanes and forced him to hafta drive past me where i saw on his computer he lookd me up, then as soon as i ditch him i start geting followd by get this a land rover, super clean first thing i did was lookd in the miror and saw exmpt on the plate. so i hit cruise control and when i turnd into my house i lookd back and sure enuf another cop computer inside a dope ass ride. what the f. they must be poppin fools for rides like suckas. glad them fools have no want for me.

By: Steven

Steven — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 07:27:57 +0000

Broward County, Florida. I drive from Weston to Downtown Ft.Lauderdale on a daily basis, about 35 miles. I’ve seen things, that amazes me. Unmarked vehicles I often see are Dodge Chargers, usually black or dark blue, Chevy Impalas, Tahoes, Crown Vics, Ford Explorers. Ive seen Pontiac GTOs, and in weston, unmarked Corvettes. Usually what you would expect, American Vehicles. But lately i’ve seen undercover vehicles, for example Honda Civic coupes, Toyota Corolla, Nissan Armadas, Maximas, and even Honda Odysseys (usually in cities of course). Ive seen these cars stop people, but the first time I saw 2 of them, a Civic coupe and a Maxima, was the day I actually decided to drive the legal limit. They were driving behind me for about 10 miles, and then suddenly put on their sirens as if they received a call or something, pretty cool.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:23:09 +0000

Around Tacoma Washington the state patrol has a early nineties brown chevy pickup truck. Aftermarket wheels, diamond plate tool box and some dents and rust. Looks like any other work truck on the road. Trooper just keeps his hat on the seat until he hits the lights.

By: Manny

Manny — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 22:09:05 +0000

Alot of people do pass unmarked patrols.
But you have to consider that only a small portion of unmarked vehicles are dedicated to actual traffic enforcement. Most are driven by detectives

Im a detective and drive an unmarked impala, and people pass me daily going well over the limit.

Unless surprisingly I have spare time, or only if I see someone do something really really stupid will I then do a stop. But you wont see it much since then I have to spend a day in court =/

By: Steve ponyboy

Steve ponyboy — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:31:10 +0000

You need to look in the grille to locate the little rectangular lights. Also when ghosting and the front guy (we call the penguin, the penguins line up at the edge of the ice and push a sacrificial lamb into the water for a whale to eat)when his tail lights come on I downshift to ease down without hitting the brake lights to be obvious. In Chesapeake they use the Chargers so watch out. In Va. the cars with police doge will have black out windows to keep the interior cool, so the dark window theory is incorrect in the southern states.
Keep the speed down in the neighborhoods and STOP at all signs and redlights to limit risk. I have no tickets in 2 fast Mustangs and have been known to trip tripple digits occasionally. It is really cool to run 115 on the Wright Bros. bride in NC.
Be cool. Ponyboy

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:24:44 +0000

Hello, even though I am from the E.U. not from USA I am going to elaborate a little bit on ghosting since I using different variation of it.
ghosting may or may not work it is not guaranteed especially with newer technologies (especially speed cameras) the success levels of ghosting are risky.
What i am doing is to follow a speeding car from a safe distance where I can assess the reaction of the driver in front. It is common logic that when a speeding driver spots a radar he will slow down as much as possible (not nesessarily hit the brakes in panic mode but he will slow down considerably…usually the speeding driver will get his ticket but if the officer was a bit late to clock him then he will get a few numbers off the ticket. However as you are following from a safe distance you usually have enough time to revert to legal limits.
although not entirely safe in terms of fines and not the fastest possible it is the best yet solution I’ve found. You will need to adjust the distance at different speeds. try to keep it within 5 seconds if possible as you must always have eye contact with the speeding car in front. If the guy is speeding too much to keep eye contact on the 5seconds limit then break off pursuit and find a more suitable speedster because if the guy in front goes to fast in order to keep eye contact in a bend you must definately be closer in terms of time, which will not give enough time to reduce speed to legal limits.
This technique had been used in rallying before the change of service regulations and rally cars would speed their way to service in order to gain more time servicing, so we would have our chase car run in front at extremely high speed notifying via radio the racing car of the road ahead(something you don’t have in a normal car since assessing the reaction alone was not enough because the speeds we are talking about were in excess of 260km/h around 160mph). In normal conditions however you will not reach this kind of speeds and to be frank if you do, you deserve getting busted :P
Until now I was never pulled up in the highway using this technique and I hope to get by like that for years to come.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:32:42 +0000

This is all good information about spotting cop cars but the point is moot when they start using things like this: http://copcars.us/main.php/v/E7/

and other cars like everybody else mentioned, the mustang, intrepids, etc. It’s not as easy as just looking for that big lightbar any more! :-)

By: Marc

Marc — Mon, 04 May 2009 03:41:31 +0000

Re: Ghosting…

There’s no guarantee that the ghost stays off of the radar…

Long time ago, I was driving up the easter shore and had a string of cars passed me @ a high rate of speed. A little later two police cars passed me (scared the heck outta me, as *I* was over the limit).

The two police cars “surrounded” the column of speeding cars and pull them all at once.

I was not one of the un-lucky ones! :-D

That is something I’ve only seen twice in the greater 30 years I’ve been driving (boy, that makes it sound like I’m really old…):

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 13:43:39 +0000

In VIrginia, on Dulles Access Road, they now have undercover SMART cars. I watched someone getting pulled over! The car has lights either in the grill or on top of the dashboard and a siren.

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:42:10 +0000

What is your take on ghosting? The act of riding behind someone who is speeding in order to allow them to be clocked first.