Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

I can believe that!

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Stay off the revenue-generating roads then?

Roads which are too twisty for them to get a good shot at recording your speed are more fun anyway :-D

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

What Yorkie said is true!

What Lozzo said was interesting!

What grunty said was informative!

What Allan said was pointless!

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Anyway, does anybody know how to recognise unmarked cars? When I'm motorway-ing this is what I keep wide eyes open for. I normally start by looking at the car type, BMW/Saab/Mercedes, in silver, gun metal, black, plain colours, and the registration plates- so far I've only seen unmarked cars with the newest plates (so 2010's). Also, at the bottom of most plates is some writing, normally the name of the dealer etc., and I find on cop cars that this writing is still there, but minimal and extremely thin, almost only readable from a metre back at most.

If I'm feeling confident after all this, I'll very slowly try and get a view of the driver to see if they're a copper.

Does anybody else do this, and have ways of recognising them? I don't bring this up so I can do 160mph the whole time.

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

The one that I came across up here was a silver 5 series Beemer, with small blue lights behind the side passengers headrests and a black display behind the middle head rest.

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Allan.....you're looking for the right kind of cars, but beware as, as I've mentioned Steve and I have also seen a van and convertible.

I always look for the car first, then look for the oversized ariel and the black boxes on the dash and the lighboard in the rear window. You can also kinda tell because you're looking at cars that are normally used by field sales guys, yet they are tarvelling at 65-70mph....any self respecting salesman will have camera detection gadgets and be doing a fair bit above that speed ;-)

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

some have double rear view mirrors

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Oh...and the killer bit of info.....DON'T SPEED.

Seriously....you should not be looking so hard for unmarked cars as you need your attention to be on everything around you....so just don't be silly. I never go above 80 on a motorway, which means a little throttle off if I see one, but I'm not exactly shouting that I'm a lunatic....and I never go above the speed limit on the ring roads now.....due to being pulled after a month of having my license with Dan and Steve (Dans fault...lol) and getting let off. We were lucky, but I'm not doing that again.

I save it for the quiet roads where you can easily see the cars to watch...if they are even there!

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

If you're approaching from behind, look for a lack of a supplying dealer's sticker in the rear window and any form of dealer advertising on the number plate. Police cars generally don't have any of this, making them a little easier to spot amongst the sales reps.

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

I also look for the number of occupants. Normally there are two, although that's not always the case.