Cool Cop Cars Drive Chinese Citizens Crazy

by Bertel Schmitt

Published: November 12th, 2011

cool cop cars drive chinese citizens crazy

When American cops drive around with expensive iron, they claim they impounded it from a drug dealer fair and square, and all is good. For some odd reasons, China hasn’t come to the level of vehicular expropriation yet. Their police gets its car the old fashioned way: They buy it. Imagine the consternation of the people in the port city of Tianjin, when they spotted a new Mini Cooper in police livery. That car is imported, and a basic version starts at around $45,000.

Carnewschina reports that angry citizens asked the police why a Mini Cooper when the standard issue Santana would have done nicely. The received the runaround first, then were told that the car was a “gift from the factory.” There is no Mini Cooper factory in China. In the meantime, the small car went viral in China.

Police in Fengchenggang tried to avoid similar run-ins with the citizenry, and stuck a Honda CR-V emblem on their Mercedes-Benz ML350. The Chinese know their cars, and that picture went viral also.

#BertelSchmitt #China #ExpensivePoliceCars

Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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Moparman426W on Nov 13, 2011

Ronnie, last year the state of Fla bought 10 Hemi Challengers for pursuit on the Fla turnpike, but they are all R/T's.

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- Ronnie Schreiber on Nov 13, 2011
  
  Maybe it's just me rebelling against authority but I've started questioning almost the entire traffic enforcement apparatus. Very little seems to be focused on actual safety. I'm just as concerned about road safety as anyone but I'd rather that cops spent their time looking for drunk/impaired and reckless drivers than folks who drive 5-10 mph over the legal limit. It's not about safety. It's about revenue. Period, full stop. Safety. Safety. Safety. Safety. Safety. Safety. Revenue. Revenue. Revenue. Revenue. Revenue. Revenue. Revenue. Look at how almost all jurisdictions enforce stop sign usage. They park on a side street so you can't see them. Then, gotcha. When I asked our local chief of police that if the goal is keeping people from running stop signs, why don't they park the cruisers right where people can see them? Then for sure they'll stop. I asked him about this after watching a someone get ticketed for rolling a stop sign in front of a school. It was almost as though the cop wanted someone to run that sign in front of a school. His answer was that then people will assume that if there isn't a cop there, they can get away with rolling the stop. But if the idea of stop signs is traffic safety, parking the cop car so people will see it, will mean fewer people will run the sign - but also fewer tickets and less revenue. It's almost all a racket. Even drunk driving enforcement. If 400 NYPD cops will publicly support ticket fixing for cops and friends and families of cops, how many off-duty cops do you think get a courtesy ride home instead of a DUI? I'd say that the cops and courts and cities and counties and states even want people to drive drunk. A DUI is a financial windfall for whatever jurisdiction gives out the ticket. Thousands of dollars for each case, with very little expense involved. FWIW, almost all speed limits in Michigan are illegal. The legislature passed statutes that say that all jurisdictions that enforce speed limits must set those limits based on engineering studies. Since those studies are based on real world driving, that means most speed limits will go up, and revenue from speeding tickets will go down. To avoid losing that revenue, most cities and counties have simply not done the engineering studies.
  
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TR4 on Nov 14, 2011

Pigs will be pigs eating all they want from the public troughs no matter what country they are in.

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