New-look RCMP cruisers have familiar feel
Published Thursday November 5th, 2009
The RCMP isn't reverting to an earlier look.
People in the Fredericton area, however, could be excused if they thought that was the case Wednesday as an RCMP cruiser painted in 1980s blue was spotted in the Oromocto area.
The car is one of two outfitted earlier this year in retro colours, part of an RCMP effort to increase visibility of the force on roadways.
The other vehicle has been painted black, the same colour used by the RCMP in the 1960s.
"They are very popular and in great demand throughout all of the districts," Staff Sgt. Stephane Caron, traffic services co-ordinator at RCMP J Division, said Wednesday.
"It is actually doing the job we intended, which was to promote visibility and to get people talking again."
District 2 Oromocto has the blue cruiser until the middle of this month.
The black patrol car, currently in the Woodstock area, will likely be used to escort the Olympic torch when it arrives in the province.
The two vehicles were introduced by the force in May.
"Each district books them in advance for various events and enforcement initiatives they have," Caron said. "They rotate throughout the province."
The cruisers, however, aren't just for show.
They are fully equipped, the same as modern police cars. The only difference is the paint scheme.
"The idea was to simply promote visibility more than anything else - to be noticed," Caron said. "People were growing complacent and were used to the white colour scheme we have right now. By just having a couple of visible vehicles that are identifiable as marked police cars, it just gets people talking. It's simply just for that - to promote visibility and to get people talking about road safety."
Caron said the idea has worked well.
"Whenever they (members) are driving those vehicles, if they even stop alongside of the road, people have stopped behind them to take pictures. It will promote a conversation at the gas station - people will stop and ask why we have those vehicles."
Caron said the cruisers have served well as a tool to get people talking with the RCMP about many things.
More City & Region
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
Comments (1)
All comments are subject to the site Terms of Use. For a full commenting tutorial click here.
Our editorial team relies on filtering technology and our visitor community to identify inappropriate comments. In the event that a site user has submitted offensive content that has evaded our filter, please select the option to Flag As Inappropriate presented within the comment. Thank you for helping to keep this site clean.