The best description is on the first result from search:
> Police cars are called cruisers because that is what they do. They cruise about town, looking for trouble, and responding to those requiring assistance.
Doubt the original poster meant any irony there, but...
Still, Webster:
> cruiser, noun:
> 1 : a vehicle that _cruises_: such as
> a : squad car
> cruise, verb:
> 1 : to sail about touching at a series of ports
> 4 a : to go about the streets at random but on the lookout for possible developments
So probably it is the origin.
Wonder if there are similar designations in other languages. In my native one the term 'cruise' is restricted only for sail (as in v., 1 definition in Webster), so it could never be applied to a police car roaming the streets.
> In my native one the term 'cruise' is restricted only for sail
Do you not used a cognate word for "Cruise control" in your language?
In Hebrew "Shait" is used for sail, but also for the idea of cruise control and a cruise missile. I cannot think of any other uses, not even for patrol vehicles.
In Swedish at least the 'cruise' when talking about in ships and missiles is the same word, but "cruise control" is a completely different word (literally "speed holder"). You can't "cruise" in you car in Swedish.
In Italy our police cars are much faster, a police car is usually called "volante" (literally "flying"), the more correct name is "autopattuglia" which is more like "patrol car".
Then we have the two different animal derived names, police cars are "pantere" (panthers) and the Carabinieri ones are "gazzelle" (gazelles).
As well you can't cruise with a car, the cruise control (often untranslated) is a "regolatore di velocità" (speed regulator), but you can actually mantain a "velocità di crociera" (cruise speed) on a vehicle.
No Pinto ever set foot (I mean tire) in Italy AFAICT, I think they weren't ever imported in Europe, but - seriously - I once happened to be overtaken by one of the few Lamborghini's they have, on a highway, I was going (cruising) at a "normal" speed (some 120 kmh) and had this strange "something blue" feeling in the rear mirror and by the time I realized it was the police flashing lights I heard "whoosh" and they were gone. (in some rare cases they use these Lambo's to transport transplant organs when elicopter was not available/couldn't fly) between cities:
> Do you not used a cognate word for "Cruise control" in your language?
It is a literal copy from English here. ESC/ESP and ABS are used or abbreviations or as a full text ones, but they map 1:1 to both English and abbreviated counterparts.
For what it worth I checked how the article "cruise missile" is called in other languages in Wikipedia (well at least ones I could tell).
Most European languages uses a some variation of "cruise", while some European and Slavic languages uses "winged" or even "maneuverable" (Polish). There is a slight correlation between a sea-faring countries and a former Warsaw Pact ones.
> Police cars are called cruisers because that is what they do. They cruise about town, looking for trouble, and responding to those requiring assistance.
Doubt the original poster meant any irony there, but...
Still, Webster:
> cruiser, noun:
> 1 : a vehicle that _cruises_: such as
> a : squad car
> cruise, verb:
> 1 : to sail about touching at a series of ports
> 4 a : to go about the streets at random but on the lookout for possible developments
So probably it is the origin.
Wonder if there are similar designations in other languages. In my native one the term 'cruise' is restricted only for sail (as in v., 1 definition in Webster), so it could never be applied to a police car roaming the streets.