And these mock-ups are so realistic that while being tested on a Vancouver street this week, “a tow-truck driver pulled up and started talking to it,” Staff Sergeant Ralph Pauw told a press conference on Thursday.

Eight of the cut-outs will initially be deployed on city streets, Pauw said. And in case some drivers aren’t fooled by the facsimiles, “there may or may not be a (real) police officer behind one of these cut-outs,” he added.