Why? Don't be breaking the law, if you do, you know the punishment. I see people do ridiculous things on the road all the time and ask myself where is a cop?

You're free to move out of the country if you feel the government is trying to control us. America = home of the free.

What are they making you do in your life? All the OP is doing is posting a video of a badass car and you turn it into a conspiracy thread.

 

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Beautiful job Duskrider, I commend you both. I do have to ask, it says 600 ft. of wiring. I did code 3 outfitting (mostly custom for a large law enforcement agency) and if I were to do that many lights in close proximity I would definitely have used multi wire cable. especially with the relatively small draw, even with gen. 4 LED's. I've put a lot of cable in some of the vehicles I did, and even though they had a LOT more equipment than that has, I don't think I ever used 600 ft. of wire. Just curious.

Also, antennas have been mentioned. We did lots of concealed antennas (had to on undercover cars) with no problem, but he probably has to tranceive over a greater distance in N.M. Comment?

 

Jack, I think there are a ton of different codes for different cities, counties and states in the US. I believe state dictates what MUST be, and that can vary widely from state to state. In Ca. police must use red on L. and blue on R. in the front upper lights (can be visor, upper winshield, roof light bar) as well as front bumper (push bar) or grill and rear facing (light bar, rear window or package tray). He has met those codes. (NM may well be different than here) I believe that the other dual color (of which he has quite a few) are permited as long as those I've mentioned are met. I have a code book, but at 2:00 AM I'm not gonna look it up now. I'm sure if I'm incorrect in any of this, someone will speak up. Remember, state by state and the top dog (state) gets to make these rules. If you ever watch "Cops", when filmed in the Southern states it's not uncommon to see ONLY BLUE'S in the light bar, front and back.

 

Nice job. Good video also. They have the new explorers like that here all lit up. You have no idea they are even there. There is one that always sits by lake winnebego here near lees summit. so watch out if you are in Lees summit, MO! Its red! Yah i ratted you out explorer cop!!!

 

The only thing that could give it away are the LED's on the mirrors. But even those are extremely hard to see, even if you are looking for them.

 

We actually fudged a little to get 600ft... we're counting all the wires in the multi-strand runs we've done too. Basically we calculated 4 wires per light @ about 5 -8ft per wire, which is 14 x 4 x (5 or 8) except for the two lightbars... they have more like 8 to 10 a piece. We mostly used individual wire that's been loomed all the way rather than multi-wire cable, it was easier to 'show off' that way since we're doing this partly for outreach. We added the antenna cabling, power wire, siren wire, and wires to several switches in the dash that allow us to do things like turn off wig wags independently to reduce power drain and light wear while doing intersection, DUI checkpoint, or community outreach with the engine off. We've also got a couple of ethernet jacks that will let us plug a network cable into a port on the car and change the patterns with a control box from outside... we counted all 8 strands of each of those too, one in front and one in back.

We didn't really give the antennas that much special thought, to be honest. They were in place on there as his personal vehicle before we began the project to add all the lights and siren, so we left them as they are. We might attempt to convert them to something more stealthy, but nobody seems to notice them. It helps that he has a standard NM plate instead of a government or municipal plate so I would imagine that a lot of folks think he's a ham nut. He has a HAM license... and he's thought about getting a HAM plate. That would take care of that.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions guys!

 

The vehicle is used for the Mounted Patrol, and since they work for any agency that needs them (State, Local, County, or even Federal if need be) the lights can take on just about any configuration. Rather than box ourselves in to one way (such as Red and White for NMSP since they don't use blue) we just went with what we thought would look nice and stayed with the overall standard for the two main light bars front and back.

 

That is so cool! Nice job!

 

Hey Im just saying the car looks good but my opinion is that all police cars should be marked. If you don't like my opinion you're welcome to not look at my post. haters gonna hate.

 

Thanks, Code. I sort of suspected this after I posted what I did. It didn't make sense that the lighting would be "non-code" (no pun intended).

Still, I think it would be good to "standardize" this kind of thing. It doesn't "cost" anything to do so, and disambiguates police vehicles from other emergency responders and things like tow trucks. (Somewhere, maybe in Colorado?, I seem to recall a tow truck or a road maintenance vehicle lit up like a police vehicle.)

- Jack

 

Like it or not I agree as well.

It's gone from crime deterrence to revenue generation as the goal.
People slow down and/or stop doing what illegal things they are doing when a MARKED car is about, same as a patrol officer walking in a uniform.

Nothing wrong with undercover cars, but they should not be used as unmarked patrol cars.

While there is nothing wrong with that person building for and paying for that mustang, its a wet dream.
How many many tickets could that car goad people into? Maybe not that car but any similar car.

If people don't notice my FULL sized 9mm CLEARLY visible on my hip, how many would pay close attention to a car with antennas on it?

The primary job of the police force is to deter and prevent crime, and that's exactly what a marked cars does and exactly what a unmarked does not do.

Besides that, its clear that the necessary materials to mimic a unmarked car are acquired easily enough by the general public.

Its easy enough for a marked car to hide in plain sight, trust me.

The least law enforcement can do is to mark their vehicles clearly, so we know we're pulling over for a REAL cop and not some deviant.

How about we make this real easy and just put snitch boxes hooked to everyone's car computer with a gps that would report back every time any vehicle law was broken and a cite would be mailed to you.
How about instead of mailing you a citation they just send you a receipt after they withdraw the $$ from your account?

 

For the record, when this car goes on active duty with the State Police for DUI patrols and traffic, it IS marked. There are magnetic badges and decals that are placed on the sides and back to clearly mark it as a police vehicle.

New Mexico State Police agrees with you Titan. They want all cars marked because they know it deters crime and shows presence, whereas unmarked cars do not. Not all local agencies are the same though, so the decals are removable for work with those agencies and for daily driving. We didn't do the movie with the decals on because we wanted to showcase the 'wow' factor when the lights come on from a seemingly stock vehicle and since this is a daily driver we need to be absolutely sure you can't tell it's a police car while it's not on duty... hence the 'undercover' aspect.

 

Oh, I see. So it is marked and that's nice to know.

Its quite a lot of work, and I am sure you are proud of it. It is impressive to be honest.

I understand that different areas have different laws and the removable decals are neat as well, so that was a good idea.

Pretty cool, what you did with the car.

 

Tow trucks typically run amber and blue, which is easily mistaken for red & blues

IIRC [state/gov] emergency vehicles are the only vehicles on the road allowed to have forward facing red lights

 

Our local sheriff's office has a Yellow Utility truck with Red/Blue lights all over it. They used to have a non-LEO city employee drive it before the red/blues were put on. The purpose of the truck is to assist motorists that are broken down in traffic or in need of help on the side of the road.

They quickly found out that people didn't pay attention to it so they put Sheriff markings all over it and mounted lights on it and have a Deputy drive it so he can perform traffic stops.

It looks like a normal utility truck that would be in the many construction zones we have here.

I know that in Wisconsin nobody but Law Enforcement are allowed to have a forward facing blue light.