Saturday, February 18, 2012

The question is, WHY???


Courtesy of Australian reader 'Snoggeramus', we learn of a puzzling fake police car in Darwin.

TERRITORY police have taken a fake New York cop car off the road - now they are trying to figure out if it is illegal.

The NYPD car complete with flashing amber lights was a long way from Manhattan when it was pulled over in the Darwin CBD on Wednesday night.

"It was clearly marked up as an NYPD car," Superintendent James O'Brien said. "Now we are going to investigate whether the person needed a permit for the lights on the top and the police sticker."

The white Commodore had blue stripes down each side and a "POLICE" sticker on the bonnet.


There's more at the link, including a picture of the car.

So . . . can anyone figure out why an Australian driver would want to rig up his Australian vehicle to look like a (not very good) fake of a New York police car? Wouldn't it have looked more convincing if it imitated a local version?





Peter

5 comments:

Shrimp said...

Maybe he intended to shoot a movie, and used it as a prop. Maybe he really (No, I mean REALLY) likes the NYPD. After 911, lots of people wear the NYPD baseball caps, and none of them are actually NYPD.

Who knows? I did notice that he wasn't pulled over for doing anything illegal with the car (such as attempting to pull someone over), and he had the correct color lights to avoid it being considered blatantly illegal. Despite that, they are trying their hardest to make it so.

jon spencer said...

Wonder if it was a old New York Pizza Delivery cars.
They had that type of problem a few years ago with the cars being mistaken for real police cars.
Also there are several companies/restaurants that use a variation of that same theme for delivery including a old yellow cab design.

SiGraybeard said...

Strange as it is, I also have to wonder why they pulled him over. A car made up to look like a police car from half a world away?

There's a guy around my town who drives an old (1970s) Dodge made up to look like a police car, called the "Alien Recovery Unit" with references to Area 51 - which is over a thousand miles away. No problems ever getting stopped - but he doesn't have a "police" sticker on it.

Morris said...

If you were an Aussie, you'd know that Darwin has something something of a rep for 'strange'(probably the heat and humidity up there). That's in the very mild category for Darwin! LOL!

Anonymous said...

I find it depressing that although they weren't able to find anything wrong with a replica foreign police car, they were able to deny the use of the car to the owner while they investigate whether it is illegal. They were able to do so apparently because of a safety violation -- a burned out indicator (turn signal).

I agree that indicators are important for safety, and if I see a car with non-working turn-signals or brake lights I will inform the driver if it is convenient to do so. But in this case it is pretty clearly a pretext for the police doing what they want to do and can't find legitimate authority to do legally.