Talk:Highway patrol

Comments
NYPD Highway Patrol and NYPD Traffic are NOT the same, one is a full Police unit in the NYPD, the NYPD Traffic division agents are not police officers, instead they are Traffic agents relegated to duties such as writing parking tickets and insuring the flow of traffic. NYPD Traffic wear slightly different uniforms, they do not carry guns and do not have the same authority as regular Police Officers. Thus I removed the portion of the paragraph "The later subunits...." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.44.8.103 (talk • contribs) 02:50, 30 May 2006‎ (UTC)

Requested move 14 October 2014

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move and/or unable to proceed, as the target is now an article. Since the editor who proposed the move has helped edit the new article, I'm going to assume that nothing further has to be done here at present. Dekimasu よ! 22:45, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

} Highway patrol → Traffic police – Traffic police is the generic name for these services throughout the world. Most of this article is about traffic police services and not specifically highway patrols in the sense it's used by US state police forces. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:44, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose - I don't think I'm against the idea of finding a better name, but I believe that the term "traffic police" or "traffic cop" are more commonly used in the USA to describe the type of officer seen at crosswalks with whistles helping school children cross the road, sort of like the difference described by the IP editor above. Perhaps there is another better option available?--Yaksar (let's chat) 16:20, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Are they not crossing guards? -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:26, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * No. crossing guards, despite what our article says, are not a traffic management specialist. They are people trained to follow strict rules and accompany children across the street in marked crosswalks. Vegaswikian (talk) 16:27, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Clear support, I imagine that if you searched on each of the terms in turn but with a name of various English speaking countries in turn, I would think that the result supported by WP:UCRN would be traffic police in most cases. I also think there to be a potentially relevant need for a Highway patrol in the US article]] Gregkaye  ✍ ♪  21:09, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that's true. Looking at our article, it seems that patrol is more commonly used in Australia (and hell, there was even a Highway Patrol (Australian TV series)). It also seems to be the term used in South Africa and Motorway Patrol seems to be used for New Zealand. Honestly this may just be one of those WP:ENGVAR cases, in which case we default to the current stable title.--Yaksar (let's chat) 00:04, 15 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Strong oppose this is not about traffic police, this is about traffic police on highways. There are traffic police on streets which is not covered by this article. Many cities have dedicated traffic cop divisions. The rationale also has issues with WP:ENGVAR -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 03:28, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * No, it's about a mix of traffic policing generally and traffic policing specifically on major roads. Read it. It's a mess. And read highway: "A highway is any public road or other public way on land". So your rationale is not valid, since that definition includes urban streets as well as major roads. It is true that colloquially the term "highway" is used in the United States only to refer to a major road, but that's not its official usage and isn't even colloquial usage elsewhere in the world. It has no issues with WP:ENGVAR, as the term "traffic police" is used in the USA as well and the term "highway patrol" is not commonly used in most other countries, so per WP:COMMONALITY traffic police is the term we should use. It's possible that all the non-US information could be moved to Traffic police and this article kept only about US state police agencies. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:26, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment was a disambiguation page prior to being redirected here when this move request was filed. And  was an article before being transformed into a disambiguation page when this was filed. -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 03:39, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, and both were absolute messes. The whole thing needs rationalising. "Traffic police" is the common term worldwide. There needs to be a page about traffic policing with this title, not a poor disambiguation page. The previous traffic police page suggested that the computer network term was the primary usage of the term, which is patently utter rubbish, and then pointed to this article, to traffic officer (who are not police and are never called police), to rules of the road, and to a selection of specific traffic policing agencies. Do you seriously think this is what should be at an article on traffic police? Traffic officer wasn't really an article, incidentally; it was a disambiguation page masquerading as an article. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:26, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support move: agree that title location should be internationalised as this is an WP:ENGVAR issue. The scope of the WP:BROADCONCEPT can include highway patrol. Widefox ; talk 11:14, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how moving the title away from the stable one that is used in multiple international countries to one that is used in others (and in at least one has a different meaning) is a proper use of ENGVAR.--Yaksar (let's chat) 16:44, 21 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Given that most of the duties mentioned in the lead are not for traffic policing, the intent of the article and of the agencies is much broader.  In some states, these are the lead law enforcement agency.  They deal with any crime the smaller local authorities are unable to deal with (or in some states elect to turn it over). Locally if we have traffic police, it is the motors.  Maybe in some areas like named agencies only deal with traffic enforcement, but given this is not a uniform practice, the article should not be moved to fix a perceived wrong.  Moving this will do more harm and create a void that would need to be filled by a new article. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:09, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
 * In that case, we need to move much of the article to another title, as what you have described is clearly predominantly the American meaning of the term. But first, please explain to me why we need State police (United States) as well, as this article describes exactly the same thing (just different nomenclature used in different states)! Please also note that the first line of this article is: "A highway patrol is either a police unit created primarily for the purpose of overseeing and enforcing traffic safety compliance on roads and highways, or a detail within an existing local or regional police agency that is primarily concerned with such duties." Yup, that sounds like traffic police to me. What we in Britain would call a Road Policing Unit, but which is generically called traffic police in pretty much every country of the world. Not just on major roads (what Americans tend to call highways), but on all roads. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:03, 22 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Unsure. The article and the above discussion are both wrong on one point at least... In New South Wales the relevant police are commonly called the Highway Patrol and have also officially been that from time to time, many of their cars are currently so marked. Andrewa (talk) 13:59, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Another idea
Just saw the now-closed requested move discussion above. It seems to me that the better solution is to move all the traffic police stuff to that article, while focusing this article on "highway patrols," which is what this article is about. Part of the reason why the requested move was opposed so vigorously is that the term "highway patrol" in American English carries a very strong connotation of professionalism that the term "traffic police" does not, because of the critical distinctions in English between a "road," a "street," and a "highway". The term "highway patrol" contains a strong connotation of patrolling a highway (i.e., rural, intercity, or freeway policing), which is portrayed in the media as more dangerous (and in a way, glamorous, i.e., CHiPs) compared to mundane traffic enforcement on gritty urban streets. A lot of the material in this article should not be here because it concerns the latter type of law enforcement and appears to reflect a somewhat confused understanding of the English language by non-native English speakers who haven't watched enough police procedurals. --Coolcaesar (talk) 19:16, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * You refer to the "critical distinctions in English between a "road," a "street," and a "highway"". That should be the "critical distinctions in American English..."! In British English, a highway is any road (as an ex-copper, I would use the term "the public highway" to refer to my local residential street as much as I would a motorway), and in Britain (and many other countries), traffic police are any police who patrol any roads and specialise in dealing with traffic infringements and accidents. This whole misunderstanding does, as you say, stem from a difference in nomenclature between different countries, and also an apparent lack of understanding from American editors that "highway" and "traffic police" can mean different things in other countries. If we're not going to rename this article, then much of it does need to be moved to traffic police. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:23, 29 October 2014 (UTC)