SA Police announce a fleet of new high-visibility highway patrol cars, while German police get an AC Schnitzer-tuned BMW X4.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA POLICE (SAPOL) has announced it will roll-out 30 high-visibility highway patrol cars because of research, and commonsense, suggests a “highly visible police presence has a positive impact on driver behaviour,” said SAPOL traffic boss, Superintendent Bob Fauser.

“You’ll see these cars predominantly in rural areas, but particularly within a radius of 100 kilometres of Adelaide.  Our data shows this is where we are seeing many fatalities and serious injury crashes,” he said.

“Less than one third of our population live in regional areas, yet each year more than 60 percent of fatalities and 46 percent of serious injuries are on rural roads.

“But we know when there is greater police visibility on the roads, drivers are more conscious and cautious  about driving within the speed limit, obeying the road rules, wearing a seatbelt and not using their mobile phone.”

The effectiveness of high-visibility policing has long been established in areas other than road safety.
Once the entire fleet is on the road, they will collectively travel more than 1.7 million kilometres a year across the State’s rural road network.

“Not only will this make our roads safer, but people will feel more secure being able to see these distinctive police cars,” he said.

“Day or night these cars will stand out.”

But, you can’t help but wonder if SAPOL wouldn’t stand out more if it was getting one of these AC Schnitzer built BMW X4s for the German police (polizei). Part of Germany’s TUNE IT! SAFE! campaign by the Association of German Vehicle Tuners to encourage safe vehicle modification, AC Schnitzer took a BMW X4 20i and upped the output from the thing’s 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder from 135kW to 180kW. That’s enough oomph to hit 100km/h in 6.7 seconds.

Beyond the power hike, AC Schnitzer gave the Police BMW X4 a bodykit, 22-inch anthracite wheels, and lowered the whole thing via new suspension (30mm lower at the front and 25mm lower at the back). It gets police livery, Hella flashing lights and a police RTK 7 signalling system.

This is the fourth TUNE IT! SAFE! car that AC Schnitzer has built.