Police vehicles in Japan
Police Vehicles in Japan are vehicles used by the prefectural police officers used for patrolling consisting of wide variety of vehicles depending on the environment and situation. Most police vehicles in Japan are manufactured by domestic automakers such as Toyota, Nissan or Subaru. Unlike how some departments in the U.S. and Canada allows their officers to take-home their police vehicles, Japan does not allow the officers to take home any kind of law enforcement vehicle. Every marked police patrol vehicles are in black-and-white two tone livery, motorcycles are usually all white. Vehicles for riot police units are painted blue and white, and especially vehicles for the Rescue Squads of the TMPD are painted green and white. The formal name is "警邏車" (keirasha), but in general the abbreviation "パトカー (Hepburn: patokā)" is widely used. History Beginning of police cars The beginning of police cars in Japan was at the Asakusa police station in January 1949 (Shōwa 24). At the time of the turmoil after World War II, security was extremely bad even in Japan, with robberies and theft incidents. Therefore, the local municipal police at that time painted the body of the car sold by the US military as "mobile police"