Humberside Police - Police Vehicles

Police Vehicles

Humberside uses a wide variety of vehicles, marked and unmarked. ProViDa is the standard in-car video unit used; the new 1997 Jai/ProViDa is also used too. Nearly all of the vehicles in the forces fleet are now being changed to the instantly recognisable battenberg livery, with only vehicles such as those used by the Road Crime Unit staying in the traditional livery. All new cars and vans are coming in this livery, with older vehicles being re-liveried as a matter of course. All new vehicles coming into service now use LED lightbar technology, as opposed to the older halogen rotating light bars. The LED lightbars are much clearer to see, and provide a lot more illumination, along with front spots and rear reds. The main vehicles used are:

Proton Cars - These are used for general patrol and by IRT (Incident Response Teams). The majority of the Protons are Impians but there are still some older Wira cars in use plus a few Gen2 models. Humberside Police won the top award in the National Energy Efficiency Awards by running the vast majority of its fleet on Liquified Petroleum Gas. Most Protons are dual fuel, running both LPG and unleaded petrol.

Vauxhall Cars - There are several Vauxhall Astra estates on the fleet, seen mainly in C Division (East Riding of Yorkshire), these vehicles can carry more equpiment than the smaller Protons, as they may be the only unit available to deal with an incident in a rural area, such as a Road Traffic Collision, until a traffic vehicle can attend - this could be anything up to 30–45 minutes.

Volvo Cars - The Roads Policing (Traffic) Section use mainly Volvo cars. These are top of the range Volvo V70 T5 models. Many are fitted with ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) systems. The newest Volvo cars in the fleet have been marked with new style Battenburg graphics in yellow and blue (as opposed to the familiar orange stripe with blue edges).

Mercedes Sprinter Vans - A batch of new Sprinter vans was purchased in 2006 to replace the previous generation of Sprinter Vans which were almost a decade old. These vans are used for Public Order and crowd situations as well as for transporting prisoners. The latest shape vans are now coming onto divisions to replace the oldest sprinters on the fleet.

Mitsubishi Evolution X - The Roads Crime Section (RCS) has 2 Mitsubishi Evolution X vehicles, which have replaced the Subaru Impreza STi's. These are specially adapted models to enable Humberside Police's elite Roads Crime Section to pursue even the fastest vehicles.

Lexus IS-F - The Roads Crime Section (RCS) also operates this high-performance vehicle as its command and control unit.

Subaru Impreza STi - The Roads Crime Section (RCS) used to operate several Subaru Impreza vehicles, although these have now been replaced.

BMW 3 Series The Roads Crime Section (RCS) also operates a few BMW 3 series cars used to quickly ferry dog handlers and their dogs while accompanying the Mitsubishi Evolution X's.

BMW X5 The force also operates some BMW X5's which are used to ferry specialist firearms officers.

Specialist Vehicles - The fleet also consists of many specialist vehicles which are used for specific purposes. These include an Underwater Search vehicle, a bullet-proof Land Rover Defender, a Leyland Prison Bus, plus marked Police recovery vehicles.

MD Helicopters MD Explorer 902 aircraft – An aerial support section operates a helicopter equipped with video and infra-red surveillance, and the late 20th century NOTAR technology to replace the tail rotor, making the aircraft more quiet than helicopters with tail rotors.