Hard-to-Spot CHP Cars Hit the Freeways

Three new, discreetly marked California Highway Patrol cars rolled onto Orange County freeways Monday and ticketed at least a dozen truck drivers as part of a statewide effort to nab speeding truckers.

CHP spokesman Paul Caldwell reported that one of the new cars, operating out of the Highway Patrol’s Santa Ana office, issued tickets to five trucks in 5 1/2 hours Monday afternoon on Interstate 5. Three of the tickets were for speeding, and two were for following too closely behind other vehicles, Caldwell said.

The other two new cars, both white Ford Mustangs, are operating out of the CHP’s Westminster office, Officer Jim Lindquist said. The Westminster cars are being deployed on a 5.5-mile segment of the Long Beach Freeway--from California 91 to Pacific Coast Highway--that has one of the highest rates of accidents involving truck drivers who are at fault, Lindquist said.

Nine tickets were issued by an officer driving one of the cars Monday morning--seven of them to truckers--Lindquist said. Both cars were patrolling Interstate 710 Monday night and will be doing so “all the time,” Lindquist said.

Each of the cars bears the CHP seal on both sides and is equipped with a “low-profile” red spotlight on the left side of the hood.