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On Tuesday, Coquitlam RCMP welcomed Const. Scarecrow, who police say will be part of a new plan to crack down on speeding drivers.

“We need a police officer who was [working] 24 hours a day, a police officer who doesn’t sleep, a traffic officer who never needs to eat and never asks for a raise,” Coquitlam RCMP Cpl. Michael Mclaughlin said of Const. Scarecrow.

Const. Scarecrow, if you haven’t guessed, is a metal poster-board cutout of a police officer holding a radar gun that will be placed across the city.

Police hope most drivers won’t notice Const. Scarecrow isn’t a real officer and a two-dimensional image of a police officer may be enough to encourage drivers to slow down.

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Driver behaviour will be monitored by high-tech devices that will be installed wherever Const. Scarecrow is on patrol.

READ MORE: Police officers disguised as utility workers catch distracted drivers in North Vancouver

That data will be collected and crunched to determine if the initiative is working.

“We’re hoping it will [work], because the second phase of it, obviously, involves a police officer stepping out from behind [the cutout],” Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart said.

Costing $500 apiece, police hope the cutouts will be a cost-effective way to improve road safety and save lives.

— With files from Sarah MacDonald