White mice drive white Porsches

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Last Thursday we visited an interesting exposition: thirteen special Porsches that have been in use by the Dutch Traffic Police from 1962 until 1996. During the early sixties many people didn't have enough driving experience to know how to behave on the highways. This resulted in many accidents, also because highways weren't as safe as today. In order to educate the automobilists, the traffic police decided to patrol the highways with fast cars, not to give tickets for speeding or other misbehavior, but to talk to the drivers and show them what they were doing wrong. The first car was a Porsche 356B and when the new approach seemed to have effect, another twelve Porsches were ordered direct from Stuttgart. The Porsche drivers were always impeccably dressed in long white coats and always drove with the top down. Because of their attitude towards unsafe drivers, they became well-respected and soon earned the nickname 'white mice'. After the 356B several other Porsche models followed, all kinds of 911 models and even the 914/4 and 914/6 to a total of 507 Porsches. Too bad that in the 1990s the bean counters at the top decided that the Porsches were too costly and had to be replaced with cheaper cars. The Dutch highways definitely lost some exiting sights. The exposition of thirteen of these Porsches at the Louwman Museum can be seen until September 4th.

(text Rutger Booy, b/w pictures courtesy Louwman Museum)

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