8 Top Tips To Spot An Undercover Police Car
We have a hidden ‘enemy’ on the roads in the UK and it seems to be getting worse and worse. I am constantly surprised by the variety of undercover police cars there are on the streets. For anyone who doesn’t know, an undercover police car is literally a police car without any features which openly show it is a police car rather than just a fellow road user.
In this blog post I will try and give you some great tips to spot one (I am not saying speeding is ok, of course the best way to avoid undercover police is by following all the rules and regulations of the road).
1) Police car list
The first and most useful tip is a quick list of the most popular ‘undercover’ police cars out there on the UK streets
-Skoda Octavia VRS’s or standard
-Any Volvo
-BMW 3,5, X5s
-Hyundai Ix35
-Audi A3,A4, A6, Q5
-Jaguar XF
(These are the main culprits but of course some different areas have different cars…I know that London has E class Mercs, Mini Coopers)
2) Clean cars
Police tend to have to keep their cars spotless, again this is not fool proof because police can do a lot of miles in a day to get their car mucky again but it’s good to keep an eye out for strangely clean but normal looking cars.
3) Normal Number plates
If the car you’re suspicious of has a personalised number plate, ignore it because police won’t have the budget or the need to change their number plates.
4) 2 people in the car
Undercover police officers rarely travel alone, therefore if the car in question has 2 people in it, it should automatically go up in suspicion.
5) Strange grey panels by the headrests or in the front grill
Now these could easily be mistaken for anti crash technology panels in the grill but they are usually glossy. If you see matt grey panels these are probably police lights! Spot these = Slow down
6) Driving stereotypes
This is the way I trust most. Is the driver driving like the type of person who buys that car? Ok that might have made no sense. For example is the Audi driver tailgating? Or is the BMW going fast and weaving between traffic? If the BMW or Audi is hovering on the slow lane following road rules and regulations then they are far more likely to be an undercover chariot, again like the other rules this is of course not absolute but it should raise your eyebrows. (These are of course stereotypes)
7) A busy dash or bright interior lights
These are a great police car warning because police need all sorts of interior computers which will naturally emit a lot of light in the night. And in the day it will be easier to see black equipment hanging below the rear view mirror or peaking over the dash.
In London it seems police can have whatever car they want as their undercover but then again it’s impossible to speed or do anything in London anyways because of all the cameras!
This content was originally posted by a Car Throttle user on our Community platform and was not commissioned or created by the CT editorial team.
Comments
‘slow lane’ disregard everything here.
Here in Serbia, it’s normal to see Audis A6 or BMWs 5 tailgating you on the highway, and if you speed up, they overtake you and pull you over for speeding :/
Beware of anyone in a nice car in Hi-Viz
In Australia (mainly Brisbane, Qld) it’s pretty easy too spot generally a Toyota Aurion, or a Commodore with a darker body paint (usually black or a dark grey) and significantly tinted windows. They’re starting too use more nowadays though like Holden and Ford utes and seen a couple of wrx’s and focuses
In Malaysia, if you see a white clean Lancer Evo X cruising below 80 km/h in highway, you better watch your ass son.
XD
Hehe my buddy used to have an old Vauxhall Omega (THE motorway traffic cop car of choice in the UK 90s/00s) in white (V6 flavour too). I remember one day we where both going to Edinburgh from Glasgow, he has a roof rack fitted and we where both wearing white-ish shirts. I have genuinely never had a smoother M8 run, we just sat in the outside lane doing 110 occasionally flashing people and everyone got the hell out the way pronto, Had a similer experience with my dads old 530d in black with 2 guys in the front resulted in extremely smooth journeys. Funny you mentioned it in the post but he also had a penchant for keeping his bimmer spotless.
Always worth an idea picking up cars like this if you do a lot of motorway miles with friends in the car :D.
I thought this would be extremely helpful until I realized I lived in Mexico and there aren’t any undercovers here… All good here!
I want the Italian version
As far as I know, there are only two or three Provida-equipped Subaru Impreza WRX wagons which are usually used to patrol the motorways around Rome (GRA, mostly).
There are a lot of other unmarked police cars in service with the Squadra Mobile, but they are usually Fiat Puntos, Stilos and other simple/cheap Fiat or Alfas (but when I see a 159 I am always suspicious). From what I know they aren’t used for patrolling streets let alone chasing guys speeding on the motorways.
In the rest of the country, I don’t think there are any other unmarked cop cars you should worry about, and with the recent conversion of all lightbars/beacons to being permanently on with a dim blue light (dimmer than when they are flashing), you can spot them easily before you are past them if you are speeding on the motorway (which, I admit, I occasionally do, but I wouldn’t brag about them being as*holes if they did catch me, like other users on here).
If you come to Switzerland (Ticino, mainly), keep an eye out for BMW 130i; VW Golf V GTI; Audi A3; Honda Accord; Volvo S40; Volvo XC60; Audi S4 Avant; Skoda Octavia Combi (Scout, too); VW Caddy.
“Any Volvo”
Here in Belgium undercover cop car are now more likely to have clean dashboard and no police light visible because they use led intergrated in the standard headlight and in the back office lateral mirros.lt’s probably the same in Germany because the stuff we use come from there !