By Steven Symes 
If you enjoy speeding or otherwise misbehaving on Missouri highways, you better be more careful because troopers are getting ghost graphics on their patrol cars. The Missouri State Highway Patrol announced the move on social media Friday telling people to “drive safe – even when you think no one’s watching.”
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In case you don’t know, ghost graphics are difficult to see in full sun, often blending into the dark color of a patrol car so it looks like a regular civilian vehicle. But at night the lettering and official symbols illuminate when headlights grace them, making it clear the person behind the wheel is a cop.
As MSHP says, ghost graphics are useful for catching aggressive and distracted drivers. Many people drive very differently once they see an obvious police car, so troopers using a cruiser with ghost graphics can see how people behave when they don’t know they’re being watched.
Ghost graphics have been used by quite a few other law enforcement agencies around the country, although the practice hasn’t been without controversy. Some feel strongly they’re underhanded, maybe even illegal, since they “get around” state laws requiring law enforcement patrol cars to be marked.
But others think because aggressive drivers will behave when they can see a clearly marked cop car nearby, ghost graphics are a great way to catch the people who tailgate, cut off, and otherwise harass them on public roads.
On Facebook, a number of comments were negative as people said ghost graphics went against the motto “to protect and serve and claimed almost no other country in the world allows such “sneaky” tactics by police.
We’ve been around long enough to know social media comments aren’t representative of the real world, so we’d be willing to bet real public support is more in the favor of MSHP troopers using ghost graphics than they keyboard warriors on Facebook would have you believe.
Image via Missouri State Highway Patrol/Facebook