West Midlands Police Rover SD 1 Traffic Car c

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gro ...

, a "jam sandwich" or "jam butty" is a

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...

car with a red stripe applied to the side.

History

The term came into common use in the 1970s, when such cars changed from the traditional blue and white colour scheme to white/grey with a broad

fluorescent Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, tha ...

orange stripe along the side. This colour scheme is reminiscent of

jam Jam is a type of fruit preserve. Jam or Jammed may also refer to: Other common meanings * A firearm malfunction * Block signals ** Radio jamming ** Radar jamming and deception ** Mobile phone jammer ** Echolocation jamming Arts and entertai ...

sandwiched between two slices of white bread, hence the name. The slang was popularised on

TV show A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...

s such as ''

The Bill ''The Bill'' is a British police procedural television series, first broadcast on ITV from 16 August 1983 until 31 August 2010. The programme originated from a one-off drama, '' Woodentop'', broadcast in August 1983. The programme focused on ...

'', ''

The Sweeney ''The Sweeney'' is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London. It stars John Thaw as Detective Ins ...

'' and ''

Minder A minder is the person assigned to guide or escort a visitor, or to provide protection to somebody, or to otherwise assist or take care of something, i.e. a person who " minds". Government-appointed persons to accompany foreign visitors are of ...

''; as well as spreading through the use of

CB radio Citizens band radio (also known as CB radio), used in many countries, is a land mobile radio system, a system allowing short-distance person-to-many persons bidirectional voice communication among individuals, using two way radios operating on ...

. It is still in common use, although increasingly police cars use

Battenburg markings Battenburg markings or Battenberg markings are a pattern of high-visibility markings developed in the United Kingdom in the 1990s and currently seen on many types of emergency service vehicles in the UK, Crown dependencies, British Overseas Ter ...

In November 2012, London's

Metropolitan Police Service The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

began to replace the liveries of its marked vehicles from the 'jam sandwich' style to Battenburg markings, in line with other

forces' marked police vehicles. In the Metropolitan Police Service, the term 'jam sandwich' now refers not to a car with a specific role, but to the car's livery only. Most jam sandwich-liveried vehicles are the remaining older models of police vehicles that have not yet been replaced, and public order carriers. A Rover SD1 Vitesse previously used by

Grampian Police Grampian Police was, between 1975 and 2013 (replaced by Police Scotland), the territorial police force of the northeast region of Scotland, covering the council areas of Aberdeenshire, the City of Aberdeen, and Moray (the former Grampian region) ...

and restored as an episode of UK television series ''

For The Love of Cars ''For the Love of Cars'' is a one-hour automotive show first broadcast in 2014 on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom. It is meant to show the character of quintessentially British and European cars through both the engineering and the social side of ...

'' was sold in 2015 at the

National Exhibition Centre The National Exhibition Centre (NEC) is an exhibition centre located in Marston Green, Solihull, West Midlands, England. It is near junction 6 of the M42 motorway, and is adjacent to Birmingham Airport and Birmingham International railway stati ...

to the

Grampian Transport Museum Grampian Transport Museum is a transport museum and charitable-based trust located in Alford, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Its exhibits chart the history of transport in the north east of Scotland through dramatic displays, working and climb-ab ...

for what was reported as a world record auction price for the Rover model. File:Met police car.jpg,

Vauxhall Vauxhall ( ) is a district in South West London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. Vauxhall was part of Surrey until 1889 when the County of London was created. Named after a medieval manor, "Fox Hall", it became well known for ...

Police car with stripe

References

External links

Restored examples of many types of UK police vehicles
Law enforcement in the United Kingdom Police vehicles Slang Automotive terminology {{slang-stub

History

See also

References

External links