CHP rolling out new fleet of stealthy vehicles to target 'video game-styled' reckless driving

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- Speeding shouldn't be a thrill. It's a threat, says CHP.

"We are not naïve. We know that people see the black and white (vehicle), they decide this is the time to be attentive. Not on their phone. Not driving fast. But when that patrol car goes away, that behavior comes out," said Sgt. Andrew Barclay with the California Highway Patrol.

The CHP is rolling out a new fleet of vehicles modified with smaller lights, a less prominent logo and in five different colors: including blue and a reddish-maroon. CHP says this will give them an "important advantage" by being able to blend into traffic without detection and to crackdown on what the CHP calls "video game-styled driving on highways."

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"Sometimes we see some of this, and it's just so blatantly dangerous, that the only other time you would think you would see it, is someone doing something like that in a video game. By no means are we saying that behavior is caused by that. Sometimes the behavior is so careless, it reminds us of what we see in a video game," Barclay said.

According to the CHP, there are almost 400,000 crashes every year in California and close to 1,000 daily reports of reckless driving. In 30% of these cases, speed is a factor. Last year, CHP officers issued almost 18,000 citations to people driving over 100 miles per hour.

Some are raising concerns over deploying these new vehicles.

"The first pillar is, of course, road safety, particularly from an agency that is part of the push to lessen the restraints on high-speed chasing here in the city of Oakland," said Cat Brooks, executive director of the watchdog group, Anti Police-Terror Project.

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Brooks is concerned about increased spending on more policing tools. She said research points to CHP officers being more likely to stop Black or Hispanic people than White people. And she suggests CHP's strategy with the new vehicles may lead to more of that.

"This idea that it is the jobs of cops to catch people, is actually what leads to incidents of violence," says Brooks. "Now they can 'catch people.' They can pull more people over. They can give more people tickets. Let's talk about who they are going to catch. And who they are going to pull over. Who gets caught and pulled over the most? Black and brown people."

CHP says there will be 100 of these new vehicles deployed all across California. The first 25 vehicles are hitting the road this week. One is already being prepped for Contra Costa County. The other 75 will be rolled out by June.