Bad Idea
One of the primary functions of LEO/CJUS is deterrence. Concealment and/or camouflage negates this. It comes down to what an agency wants to accomplish. Revenue collection or safety? A good supervisor or parent knows to patrol the office or home VISIBLY to deter misbehavior. If you sneak up and "catch" someone
doing something wrong out of the blue, you may cause them upset briefly. However, the types of impulsive
individuals who often lack self control are going to be the majority of violators that "ghost" cars are allegedly
trying to stop. Persons with that kind of profile are notoriously poor at learning from negative experience.
In summary, I'm putting forth the psychological notion that troublesome offenders usually respond well to actual police presence in terms of moderating behavior, but poorly with learning from past punishment, or obeying the rules because of what "God" or some non-visible legal authority demands. Obviously, this is not my original idea. If you sneak about you will catch people doing bad things, but isn't it better to go about proudly and overtly and prevent bad things to begin with. Of course I realize that there can be some limited situations that require stealth.
I recall being told, in my youth of about Louisiana State Police Car Per Man Program. (sorry google was not help here). There story was, an innovate LSP leader decided that visibility = deterrence and so ordered that each man have his own police car, which he could use as his daily driver, even off duty. Allegedly, this was considered a very succesful program. Years later in the late 1980's I believe, LSP began adopting a "stealth car approach" and I remember being surprised at this, as a dark navy almost black car is hard to see at night. Fortunately, this was a short lived mistake, and they, fairly quickly returned to more traditionally colored units.
Lastly, to those of you who are dismissive of the notion of "speed traps" as being the whining of violators,
let me encourage you to rethink that. Perhaps the LEO in you area are unfailingly honest in their duties. If they are, rejoice, because you may be quite lucky. Many of us have to tolerate what is essentially tax collection at the barrel of a gun. You say don't speed and you'll be ok. I'm afraid not. My first encounter
with this was with my father, in a delivery truck. He was falsely cited for 71 in a 50 zone, in a vehicle whose top speed was 67. I was with him and looking at the speedo, we were doing 45. This trooper was later
found to be stealing cocaine from an evidence locker and canned. A close friend who is a retried trooper
was victimized in a well known local speed trap town, cited for 80 in a 45. He never sped. I could go on and on, but speed traps are quite real. They also involve towns setting absurd speed limits, or speeds which alternate from fast to slow with frequency, in a deliberate attempt to confuse. I've also known people who have been cited for "speeding" which was probably within the error rate of their speedo's 2-3mph for example. I suspect part of the root of this problem is a system that rewards citations and arrests, vs
no citations and no arrests because the streets are actually safe. Imagine if your physician got a point toward promotion every time he hospitalized someone.
Regards,
JB
