KU junior wins contest for new police car design
- Aug. 28, 2012
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Andrew Meier has an affinity for swanky-looking speedsters.
Last year, the junior design student from Olathedrafted a design for the KU Office of Public Safety’s police cars. They were getting a new fleet of Dodge Chargers.
“It was kind of ironic, actually,” Meier said. “I love fast cars and going fast, and there I was designing a cop car.”
Meier’s design was selected and combined with George Ressler’s, another University student at the time.
The design won the college and university categories for the 2012 International Police Vehicle Design Contest in an August issue of Law and Order Magazine.
The University of Kansas Police Department asked Jeremy Shellhorn, associate professor of design, if any of his students would contribute their drafts for the design contest.
“We had seen that other departments were putting in their designs that weren’t nearly as cool as ours, so we just decided we had to go for it,” said Ralph Oliver, director of public safety for the Lawrence campus.
The judges favored Meier’s design above the 17 other entries in the category.
“The blue swatch highlights the car nicely,” the judges’ comments read. “It is different than the traditional black-and-white, adding the blue and red outline.”
The car also features the KU Buddy System logo, and KUPD’s and the Crime Stoppers’ phone numbers. Oliver said he wants the car to help KUPD communicate with students.
“Part of our job is to connect with our community and with our students, and it’s hard to do because there are a lot of departments and entities on campus vying for their attention,” Oliver said. “Our service is more in the area of trying to educate our students in personal safety and the types of services that the public safety office supplies.
Neither KUPD nor the student designers received prizes for winning the category, but that doesn’t bother Meier.
“I’m a car nerd,” Meier said. “It’s awesome just to see it driving around, but knowing that it won the contest is just cool for the bragging rights.”
— Edited by Allison Kohn
