SPOKANE, Wash. — If you drive around Spokane, you will likely notice new Spokane police cars and trucks on the road in the coming months. The department says they have 150 patrol cars and 58 of them should not be on the road.
Spokane Police Department Public Information Officer Daniel Strassenberg said that typically police cars are used for five years and around 100,000 miles. That puts a third of SPD’s fleet over those numbers. That is just patrol cars too. If you include the entire SPD fleet, 123 cars are over 100,000 miles.
Strassenberg said, “We put a lot more stress on vehicles than your normal everyday driver. A lot of stop and go a lot of emergency driving.”
In 2022 the department ordered 72 cars. Since dealerships were on backorder, they are just now starting to see those cars on the streets of Spokane. The department said because of the backorder, there will be some vehicles that you aren’t used to seeing as police cars. “Due to some supply and demand issues, we were able to purchase some F-150’s,” said Strasseberg.
The trucks and cars are currently in the shop getting commissioned for police work.
However, Spokane Police says these new vehicles don’t get the department where they need to be. SPD says another 42 of their cars are nearly at the 100,000-mile limit. Strassenberg said, “Because of the inherent stress that we put on them just day-to-day driving, they tend to wear off really quickly.”
The department says it is also important to add the amount of time the cars sit idling every day. “They will run shift to shift to shift and barely get a break,” said Strassenberg.
Spokane Police says an ideal situation would be for 45 new patrol cars every year for the next four years to catch up. From there, they say they need consistent funding to make orders. As of now, the city does not have any funding in the 2024 budget for new police vehicles.
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