Khaleej Times recently got permission to find out what’s inside a Dubai police patrol car, as they interviewed Colonel Jamal Mohammed Al Bannai, Deputy Director of the Traffic Police department. Right now, Dubai police has 153 patrol cars that are being used day and night to maintain traffic discipline in the city.
Every Dubai police patrol car has a laptop, a 12-eye camera, sounds, lights, a torch, a cone, a first aid kit, a cleaning brush, a cloth, a tape, a shovel, a reflective triangle, a hammer, an iron rod, a fire extinguisher, a video recorder and an electronic notebook.
That’s a lot of things in a compact car, but these are what a patrol car needs to bring the death toll on roads to zero.
The Deputy Director told the news channel, “We have different methods to control the roads in Dubai. We have speeding cameras and patrol cars everywhere. We have meetings every month to see where we need to focus. If we traffic signal or a street that needs focus — maybe there’s some accident or we receive a call reporting about a driver’s behavior — then we will focus on that road and try to reduce the number of accidents on that road.”
He added, “If our policeman spots a traffic violator, depending on the situation, he would either stop the car or just note its number. If we can stop him, we would do that because we don’t want him to continue. If we can’t chase that car, we will call other policemen who are on duty and give him the details so that they can stop the car.”
“If we can stop the car without causing any danger to others, we will do that and follow our procedure. For other cars that are caught by the speed cameras, we have their details here on our system and we will issue fines and take appropriate action. The camera footage is monitored 24×7 by our team in the control room.”