Just goes to show......

[svopaul]

Even when marked "out of service" there will still be someone who may call in a complaint....

My GSP barely ever moves, so every once in a while I take it out to keep things moving....last week I took it to lunch and to pick up some paint supplies...all in all about 12 miles one way. No problems whatsoever...came back and parked the car again.

Yesterday my buddy(AL State Trooper) was by the shop and to join us for lunch...he told me he heard from someone that they heard a call go out on the scanner last week in another small town(where my paint supply shop is) for a Grey/blue police car driven by someone who was not a LEO....that's all I got. So today I took a drive down to Leeds and another town along the way with a flyer that I made up after seeing Andy's flyer on his CHP and I asked to see the Police Chief. I gave him the flyer and explained that my buddy told me there was a call out on the car and that I just wanted to let him know who I was and why I have the car....He said "yes, we got a call on this....they said the lights were on" to which I told him that was not possible(aside from there being no chance in hell I'd ever do that, I have the fuse pulled so they are disabled and there can be no accident). We then talked about what I do here and he said "Really? I have a '68 Mustang"....so in the end I may have picked up another customer and the Chief was very happy that I took the time to stop by and had the flyer...he said he would let all his guys know about it.

Here is a picture of the car(same I used on the flyer)....My out of service decals are not small and stand out and on top of that my personalized tag is "EX GSP". The lightbar cover is not on in this picture.

SO...in the end....Thanks Andy for posting your flyer as it gave me the idea to make my own. It goes to show that it is a helpful tool to help local law enforcement know who we are because regardless of out of service markings and no abnormal behavior it is obvious that some idiot may take it upon themselves to call you in and even lie about the use of lights.

This is even further evidence for the need to clearly mark these cars as out of service and do what you can to go that extra step to show that you are not attempting to impersonate.