Being of a certain age, I do. This bright yellow livery was used for years and years and years. Stands out. Easy to spot. Then for a couple of reasons this was no longer going to work. One reason was something about using paint with too much lead in it (couldn't get a yellow without it?). Another, was that they looked too much like New York taxis. Sure, I bet they were being hailed all the time by vacationing NYCers. And being Canadian, the coppers probably took those people to their destinations at no charge!
But like the song says, all things must pass, and the charge was on to join the new white trend in police vehicles.......
Add a nice set of blue and white stripes and no one was being harmed with leaded paint or wasting time as a taxi service. This continued for a while until some bright soul decided those stripes had to stand out more, hence make them wider.......
Not a bad look, conservative but effective. An easy change. But around this time, police car graphics started to get rather flamboyant, well at least in the context of them being on a police car. Somebody actually had graphic artists design the paint schemes, instead of simply using someone who had a ruler. So eventually, although late to the party, TO had to follow........
Bright white (is there any other white?) and a more contemporary design for those red and blue stripes. Looks good and everyone's happy. Well, not exactly everyone. After a relatively short time and a new police chief, another change was in order (necessary?). Let's do a complete turn around..........
Use that same graphic package, but now on a more sombre grey background. Good looking, but doesn't stand out like a white cruiser. Never mind. The reason for the change? The chief just wanted it and liked grey. Reason enough? Not so fast. So the police board, put a stop to the change. Too militaristic. Too unfriendly looking. Unapproachable. Really? Does any police car look friendly and approachable?
Now we had the "old" white cruisers mixed in with quite a few of these new grey ones.
Pause to rethink this change without pissing off the new chief, but still have a cop car that looked somewhat friendlier than the chief's choice. Solution? Let's add white doors.......
......and order a ton of them, since they now look so much friendlier.......
Good move. Now, until all those white and all those grey cruisers get used up, we have three distinct police car liveries at every major crime scene. Interesting and I bet we may be unique in this regard.
Worried about your police car being unapproachable? Want to make them more friendly looking? Ok, then look no further than a car we have used in the past to enthrall the city's children. Have this one cruising the city streets and everyone would approach it. Maybe even paint it grey?
Until next time.......
No comments:
Post a Comment