My '97 TL with the yellow fog lights turned on apparently looked close enough to a cop car to people. People ALWAYS got out of the left lane (even the Priuses!)

 

Charger and Challenger lights are easy to spot, if you are behind them.

From the front I can tell BMWs and other 3G TL's. Lots of times where I think I am seeing an Integra behind me with the rounded lights, it is actually a beetle

 

The ONLY headlights I care to recognize in my rear view mirror are those of police vehicles, particularly when driving on freeways. Fortunately, NJ police departments largely still have Crown Vics with a growing fleet of Chargers, Yukons(?) with a spattering of Impalas (very infrequent).

 

Always. Gotta keep away from the cops!

 

I am usually pretty good at this, but the new Accord LEDs look exactly like Lexus at night.

 

I have done it so long that I have actually filed a police report on just taillights. A hit and run happened outside my apartment in college once. When I made it to the street, a Buick was stopped in the road ~50 yards away with the driver stumbling around to check the damage then drove off. I was confident enough to file the suspect car as a Buick even though I didn't know its color.

He went across the road and hit a parked car up onto the curb.

 

Good thing I know I'm not alone. People would always ask why I get out of HOV at night. Only to realize it was a crown vic or charger cop.

 

I do this too...however auto dimming rear view mirrors make it a little harder, ESPECIALLY when it makes it so hard to see anything other than the headlight on the car behind you and not the light bar on the roof (ask me how I know this! ). I go one step further, I can also tell pretty easily what kind of car it is by the sound of their exhaust, and even by the sound of a closing car door. Pah-theh-tic!