See That White Prado In That Rear View Mirror? It’s Probably The Police
New Toys for the Boys in Green
By Imthishan Giado
Thought you knew all the police cars on the street? Think again.
Al Futtaim Motors has just delivered 35 of its mid-size Prados to the Dubai Police, the latter of whom have been using Toyotas for going on 60 years now. In the past, Dubai’s boys in green have also used Chevy Tahoes, Nissan Xterras and Pathfinders and Toyota Fortuners for SUV patrol duties, so you certainly can’t accuse them of not trying something different with their fleet.
Brigadier Anas Al Matrooshi, Deputy Director Transport and Rescue Dubai Police (L) and Simon Frith, MD, Al-Futtaim Motors (R)
But here’s an interesting factoid from the press release that accompanied this story:
“Preceding the handover of the 35 new Prado’s, DP have also received training on Toyota’s Intelligent Tester, a machine that once plugged into the vehicle, can detect any defect or malfunction, thus reducing the risk of any sudden breakdown.”
This “Intelligent Tester” sounds like a brilliant invention – why wouldn’t everyone want one provided with their cars if it could diagnose any fault? What a boon it could be to service centres if you could figure out what the problem was at home! And then fix it yours…wait, that’s probably not such a good idea.
(NB: The Intelligent Tester is Toyota’s name for the ubiquitous OBDII scanner that simply plugs into your car and translates fault codes or engine data. You can actually buy one yourself, if you need to.)
