German police chiefs made a bit of a miscalculation when they invested $33 million on a new fleet of pursuit vehicles – only to find their police officers couldn’t fit into them.
Police officers found the seats in the Opel Insignia Sports Tourers were too narrow for them when wearing belts carrying their guns, batons and other equipment, according to The Local.
They also found seeing clearly out the back of the vehicle was a problem, according to officers’ complaints.
Authorities in Hesse purchased a fleet of 800 cars, but a poll by the region’s police union found many police officers preferred their old Opel Zafira vehicles to the new ones.
Only 200 of the cars have been delivered and put into use so far, while the fate of the other 600 is uncertain given the issues that have been raised by police officers.
Policeman Lothar Holzgen said of the reduced visibility out of the back window, “I need to see out of the back every minute, every second. That’s a safety matter for us.”
An interior ministry spokesman stated neither of the complaints put forward by police officers had been noted during testing of the vehicles.
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