Police backtrack on switch to grey
‘Militaristic colour scheme’ sent wrong message, motion said
Toronto cop cruisers will remain white, red and blue, at least for now, after police Chief Mark Saunders reversed a decision to replace them with new, much criticized, dark grey cruisers.
“There are people who like them. There are people who don’t like them. The concern that has been expressed has convinced me that further work is necessary,” Saunders said in a statement Thursday.
Less than 24 hours earlier, city council passed a motion asking the Toronto Police Services Board to retain the current colour scheme of its patrol cars “pending further review.”
The motion said the “stealth grey, militaristic colour scheme” sent the wrong message to the public, and the decision seemed prompted by a desire to choose a “cool looking” design over one “that encourages public respect and engagement.”
Safety experts have also been critical of the grey for its lack of visibility on city streets. In Europe, many law enforce- ment agencies paint their vehicles in lime yellow, which is “on the top of the visibility pyramid of paint colour,” Stephen S. Solomon, a retired New York optometrist and emergency services consultant, told the Star.
At its last meeting, the Toronto police civilian oversight board, which includes Mayor John Tory, asked Saunders to explain the rationale behind the colour switch because board members had not been consulted.
Saunders said at the time he didn’t think he needed board input to make the decision and that no “deep thought” went into it.
In September, the police service began replacing its familiar white Ford Crown Victoria vehicles with Ford Interceptors painted in a dark shade of grey. “Police” is printed in highly reflective decals on all four sides.
The rollout was supposed to happen over three years. To date, slightly more than100 grey cruisers are on the road, not including the “stealth” version which do not have reflective decals. There are about 7,500 vehicles in the fleet.
On Thursday, the retired staff sergeant responsible for introducing the white-coloured cruisers to Toronto streets welcomed the news that Saunders had reconsidered.
When Michael Felip first heard that Toronto’s police fleet was going grey, he thought it was not a well-thoughout decision and wondered “where’s the science?”
Thirty years ago, the then-Metropolitan Toronto Police force assigned dark-coloured cars to officers who were working undercover — not on general patrol.
“Grey cars blended into the background. That was the whole idea of them,” Felip said Thursday.
In 1986, Felip, then a young sergeant, wrote a report to persuade the force’s civilian oversight board to change yellow cars to white based, in part, on colour studies and safety research. The yellow paint, the colour of the force’s fleet for two decades, contained cancer-causing chemicals, which was unsafe for auto body painters to use.
Board members also viewed several sample cars parked at the force’s headquarters. The Metropolitan Toronto Board of Commissioners, at its Sept. 25, 1986, meeting, agreed with Felip’s conclusions.
“This report reviewed the relative safety of different colours of car paint and advised that white with reflective stripes would be the most appropriate choice,” according to the minutes obtained by the Star.
Felip said he’s not sure that white is still the most visible colour for today’s police cars, but “any decision should be backed up by science and not whim.”
“I think it is a wise decision and one where he (Saunders) can really generate some positive attention by getting creative input from the public, again based on science.”