Lincolnshire Police have acquired a new vehicle in the fight against crime: A TRACTOR!

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POLICE TRACTOR

16 January 2011

I was standing chatting to a friend in an upstairs room when I noticed, in the traffic outside, what appeared to be a white tractor. It struck me as a little odd so I looked more closely and sure enough it was a tractor and it was white. I then noticed a yellow stripe along the length of it and thought it looked like a police tractor. Of course it wasn't but as it moved forward in the traffic I saw a police emblem in the middle of the yellow stripe. It was a police tractor! Surely not! As the thing was passing I noticed blue lights on the top and the word POLICE writ bold on the back. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me. I could hardly believe it. A police tractor! Was this some sort of joke? Was it a stunt? A police tractor? This is a rural area but what would the police use a tractor for? Chasing farmers? I'm now on the lookout for a police combine harvester!

On the subject of tractors did you know you can buy chocolate tractors from Thorntons and tractor shaped lollipops from Candy.com. If you are interested in reading about tractors there are magazines on the subject at the Magazine Group too.

Here are some pictures of the offending vehicle:

Apparently it is used for publicity and was the brain child of Chief Inspector Phil Vickers seen here posing in his rural wellies with John Craven and "the tractor". Phil Vickers is responsible for Community Safety in the East Division of the Lincolnshire Police. Fortunately the police (actually the tax payers) haven't paid for the vehicle as it was donated, or rather loaned, to the police by John Deere UK and the National Farmers Union paid for the paint job. You can read all about the tractor and the promotional objectives from the horse's tractor's mouth at the Lincolnshire Police Tractor Trail

Police and tractors are not common bedfellows but the wrecked car shown here was the consequence of the police chasing a stolen tractor. On account of this kind of damage perhaps the police would be better employing tractors to chase tractors. It conjures up an amusing picture.

Police do sometimes use tractors in the course of their work. Police Sergeant Hawkins of the Avon and Somerset Police used his own tractor in 2009 to get to work and to assist in recovering vehicles stuck in the snow around Shepton Mallet.

For some other "off beat" police modes of transport see Rossendale Online