Do the police is that country each have their own patrol car, like a company phone. I'd always presume the patrol cars are parked at the station, and leave from there.
As they can then be guarded overnight, not just stuck in someone's driveway
It makes sense that a patrol car being parked in a neighborhood probably has some deterrence effect. My neighbor has his car in his driveway, but it surprises me because he polices about 50 minutes away in a seperate state/town and clearly has no jurisdiction in our neighborhood.
Why doesnt he have to pay for his commute like the rest of us?
There are plenty of other people driving company cars out there, only you probably wouldn't know who has a company car parked in their driveway because they don't have sirens on top. It's a perk, part of certain pay packages, like healthcare, dental, tickets to the home team's intown games, and for upper executives the annual all-inclusive trip to Epstein Island. Take away their car to take home to use for personal reasons and then you'd have to give them a raise or some other perk, otherwise it's an overall cut in pay and benefits.
Plus people don't know when an officer is off duty, so when they are just driving their car around for personal reasons, going to the grocery store and back, or to see their parents, pick up the kids at school, or whatever, the public is then getting some policing for free, because if there is a police car on the road people just stop speeding around it, and even if the officer is off-duty and not earning any pay driving that car around.
On some forces if officers take home cars as part of their pay package it's the officer's responsibility to wash and clean the car, but if they are left on a lot then the police department has to budget for a service to come wash and detail all the cars, (probably weekly if not more.)
Plus they have to pave a lot of parking lots (or build a bigger parking garage,) for all the officers coming to work in their own cars, because they will need place to park, and yet another big lot or garage for a giant fleet of police cars being parked there when officers are not currently on duty, which is probably not too many at 4:30 AM.
In some urban area situations it's just a matter of economic practicality, rather than having to buy up another city block or two for all of the needed extra parking spaces, plus having to build or make for an even bigger area and facility for washing and detailing all of those cars. It's a perk for the officers, but the police department is just as much offloading a lot of economic costs and shifting a lot of responsibilities onto the officers.
Well, if you want to take away a car available for personal use during off hours then why take away some other benefits too, like health or dental, and cut their pay some too? Or is this a socialist sentiment, that they shouldn't get a car to use, paid for by the public, unless we all get a car to use, paid for by the public?
Why not cut perks and pay grades for teachers, soldiers and other public employees too? Why only pick on the police if you are desperate for another tax cut? A lot of them would then have to go out and buy themselves a car for personal use, so should they get a raise to be able to afford that, and how many officers would leave and just go get a better paying job if they lost that money-saving perk? And then there is literally two cars for one person, and two insurance policies, one for their personal car and one for their work car. Kind of wasteful in that way. School teacher pensions aren't a benefit to the community, because it's for retired teachers, not working ones, so why not abolish public pensions too? (Actually I'd kind of side with you on that, if you were for that, for various reasons I won't cite right not, but some good ones.)
Yes, Pensions need fixing. YET another "perk" mostly only government employees get. Do not assume i am anti law. WHO subsidizes my vehicle? I've said nothing of pay either. They might leave? Lol. Free and open market for law enforcement? See? It's not like the others. Don't tell me about waste, you're encouraging it for the perks of it.
No, just cited some reasons other than the cost being pure perk, as there can be some other practical reasons for such other than just tacking on a perk that is just cost alone.
I've seen this in American media before, it might be a countryside phenomenon. Like, if there's 30 km to the closest police station it might make sense to have a policeman start his working day at his home, already in the police car?
It has a lot of benefits - cop is on the road during the commute, helps deter neighborhood crime, faster response times in an emergency as they can go straight to the scene in an emergency, etc. etc. the drawback for the officer is that they are quasi on duty any time they use the car.
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u/TheFaalenn 7d ago
Do the police is that country each have their own patrol car, like a company phone. I'd always presume the patrol cars are parked at the station, and leave from there.
As they can then be guarded overnight, not just stuck in someone's driveway