Cranbury Township Committee Approves Purchase of Three Police SUVs

The is set to get three Chevy Tahoe SUV’s, the first time police vehicles have been in the budget since 2010, according to Police Chief Rickey Varga.

The Township Committee unanimously approved the ordinance appropriating funds for the two marked SUV’s and one unmarked SUV at Monday’s meeting.

“I’m very happy to see that the committee worked with the police department and approved the vehicles because they’re much needed,” Varga said.

The marked cars will most likely be driven by a supervisor and be used for daily patrol, while the unmarked one will have a dual purpose, for a detective or administrative purposes, and inclement weather, Varga said.

The police department has four Dodge Durango SUV’s that are unserviceable because of their high mileage and amount of use, Varga said.

Most recently police have been using township vehicles during inclement weather, which can be a safety problem since they don’t have police lights on them and cars coming down the roadway don’t have an advance warning of the hazard ahead, Varga said. The new unmarked car will have a complete set of police lights on it. 

A typical police car lasts about three years on the road for patrol use, because of the amount of mileage and idle time put on the car, Varga said. There are six patrol cars on the road during each 12-hour shift.

During the shift the car is typically on the whole time, either driving around or idling while an officer fills out a report on the road.

“It’s kind of like multitasking, they’re completing a report they would normally have to do at headquarters yet they're sitting on a roadway and can have their radar unit on enforcing motor vehicles,” Varga said.

Cranbury Police installed a new records management system in January that allows them to do reports from the road instead of having to drive back to headquarters. The new system cuts down on paperwork and keeps officers on the road longer, .