Police cars in the UK need to be designed with many jobs in mind – from speed to transporting criminals safely, and they also need to be designed for high visibility and public safety, to ensure that they are identifiable both in the day and at night.
Along the sides of a police car are markings that are called Battenburg markings – these are blocks of alternate blue and yellow along the sides of the vehicle, helping people to see them and also to identify them from the side as police cars.
The back of the vehicle also will tend to have markings known as chapter 8 chevrons like this www.vehiclechevrons.com/ These are very bold yellow and red reflective markings that can also be found on vehicles like motorway maintenance vehicles to ensure that they can be seen from the rear at night, especially on faster roads and in times of low visibility.
As well as the markings on the vehicles, police vehicles will also have one of the main features that we all know – the flashing blue lights and the sirens, which alerts both road users and pedestrians that they are nearby when they are attending an emergency situation, so that if necessary, people can safely make way for them to come through traffic.
Internally, police cars can also be equipped with technology like automated number plate recognition, which they use to identify vehicles that are uninsured or have been reported stolen.
