After watching the local news tonight where some whack-job is driving around in a police style cruiser, pulls women over and rapes them made me wonder;

"Why aren't police cars clearly marked "Police" with lights on top?"

The cynic in me says its another revenue generating ploy to catch speeders or to be sneaky.

I mean if all police cars were clearly marked, people/women wouldn't stop for these unmarked cars. Am I wrong that unmarked police cars contributes to this crime?

I would think if someone were to impersonate a police officer it would be harder to be driving around in a car that looked like one of those unmarked police cars.

I also believe that if you need help from the police and were looking to flag a patrol car down, you might not recognize the unmarked cruiser as a police vehicle and not get the assistance you need.

So, is there a reason why there are unmarked police cars?