Road Safety Ruse Does The Trick

Police can’t always be there to catch speeders and scofflaws. But in this college town, sometimes their patrol cars can.

The department is sending out unarmed civilian volunteers to sit in police cruisers to fool motorists into thinking officers are watching.

“When people see my car, they slow down, and that’s what it’s all about. It’s a deterrent,” said Warren Blake, a 24-year-old graduate student at Southern Illinois University.

Blake, who wants to be a police officer, has been out three times as a volunteer in a white patrol car that otherwise would have been in the Police Department’s parking lot.

Since the fall, Blake and nine others have served as a sort of Potemkin police force, just sitting behind the wheel for appearances’ sake. The volunteers range from college students to retirees in their 60s.

“We can’t provide as high a profile as we would like in some areas,” said Police Chief Don Strom, whose 60-officer department patrols 12 square miles. “This program allows us to use volunteers who are willing to go into those neighborhoods and create that sort of aura of a police presence that will force people to look down and check their speedometers.”

The civilians can’t chase or arrest anyone or issue tickets, but they can radio in trouble if they see it and can write down license plate numbers.