New York police bolster image with Smart fleet
IN NEW York City’s tabloid newspapers and on blogs, they have been derided as “clown cars”. The previous police commissioner, Bill Bratton, described the subcompacts as “midget cars”, even as he announced their rollout last year.
But the city cannot seem to get enough of the tiny, bean-shaped vehicles, which look like curiously shrunken cousins of the iconic New York Police Department patrol car and which never fail to draw the attention, and sometimes the affection, of curious passers-by.
So despite the quips, and in part because of them, the agency is rolling out even more of the little vehicles, outfitted with red and blue lights and the insignia of the police department.
The two-seat Smart Fortwos are taking the place of three-wheeled scooters that for decades have had their own peculiar place in the city’s vast fleet of otherwise muscular police vehicles.
The Smart cars, though, are safer, cheaper and easier to operate. The officers appreciate the air-conditioning. There is also another unexpected benefit: As the police department has sought to project its friendlier side in an era of low crime, the Smart car has been an effective icebreaker.
Among the department’s fleet of thousands of vehicles, including Ford Explorers racing to calls and tow trucks clearing traffic lanes during the evening rush, the Smart car is quite possibly the only one that has its picture routinely shared on social media, described as “adorable” or, in the case of one parked in the West Village, “Cuuuuuute.”
“It’s just so approachable,” said Robert Martinez, the deputy commissioner for support services, who oversees the department’s vehicles. “People want to take pictures with it. People want to hug it, they want to kiss it. It’s just amazing.”
It has no siren and no space for a suspect, but its look borrows heavily from that of the department’s patrol cars, down to the blue stripes and the scrolling message board. The RMP, the shorthand in New York for a radio motor patrol car, has long been a defining symbol of the nation’s largest municipal police force, one broadcast far beyond the city’s borders by way of movies and television shows such as NYPD Blue and Law & Order.
It was an image shaped largely by the RMPs of an earlier era: Chevrolet Caprices and Ford Crown Victorias. The cars were boxy, durable and occasionally missing a hubcap or two – rolling emblems of a department keeping watch over what was then a grittier metropolis. To some, the vehicles represented an unwelcome presence; to others, like Albert Roman, a retired narcotics detective from the Bronx, the cars conveyed authority. “It stands for something,” said Roman, who restores and collects retired RMPs.
Vehicles have often played a part in the politics of policing. In recent years, amid roiling racial tensions between minority communities and law enforcement, activists have pointed to the hulking armoured vehicles mobilised in protests across the country as symptomatic of the militarisation of the police.
Conversely, the police in New York have used cars as tools for community outreach, such as the one outfitted this summer with rainbow colours and the motto “Out and Proud” for gay pride festivities.
Almost as soon as the Smart cars hit the street, photographs started popping up on Twitter and Instagram, usually accompanied by a lighthearted caption, teasing about budget cuts or asking, simply, why. A user on Reddit posted a photograph of a bunch of the cars parked in a field, calling it the mother lode.
In the Jamaica neighbourhood of Queens, New York, the 113th Precinct posted a tweet with a picture of officers on horseback staring down at the car: “‘You might be bigger but I am smart- er’, said the Smart Car. ‘But I have more horsepower’, the horse replied.”
The police department is among the first public safety organisations in the world to introduce the cars, manufactured by the German automaker Daimler AG, in large numbers, with 150 already in service and at least 75 more coming.
The cars each cost about $23,400, compared with $29,500 for a threewheeled scooter. And unlike the scooters, officers do not need a motorcycle licence to operate one.
The scooter was limited to 35 mph, while the Smart car is fast enough for the highway. Even so, officials emphasised it was still seen more as a scooter than a squad car.
“When you call 911,” Martinez said, “a scooter’s not coming.”