Oklahoma City Police use mannequin to study drivers

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- The Oklahoma City Police officer you see in a parked cruiser along the side of the road may not be a man but a mannequin.<br/><br/>The Oklahoma City police department has begun a

Friday, March 25th 2005, 5:51 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- The Oklahoma City Police officer you see in a parked cruiser along the side of the road may not be a man but a mannequin.

The Oklahoma City police department has begun a three-month study to gauge drivers' reactions to a police car parked on the shoulder of a road or highway.

A black-and-white cruiser, with a mannequin dressed in a police uniform sitting in the driver's seat, will be parked at random locations across the city so researchers can determine if they cause motorists to ease up on the gas pedal.

Stuart Chai, a civil engineer with the public works department, said he came up with the idea for the study more than a year ago after he heard other cities were doing it.

This is the first time this has been done in Oklahoma City.

"It's almost like a science experiment where you propose a hypothesis and you go about conducting experiments, and you see if you got the results you were expecting," Chai said. "This is kind of a work in progress."

Cameras and speed-monitoring devices used by law enforcement agencies will gather information that later will be studied by the city's traffic management division, Chai said.

The cruiser will be parked in areas where residents have complained about speeders, Chai said.

The study is being paid for using federal money, he said.