quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
I know when they're in my mirrors at 0300, they're hella bright!!

I try very hard not to have them in my mirrors, any time of day!

I voted red and blue.

flashguy

In PA, marked vehicles have Red and Blue. Certain Fire Police vehicles (captains and deptartment owned can also use red/blue combo).

Unmarked police cars typically only have red but you might see red/blue combinations on occasion.

Fire Chiefs/EMS Chiefs and other emergency vehicles use Red only.

Volunteers Fire/EMS people can use a blue only (courtesy) lights but you don't have to pull over for them and they must obey all traffic laws.

There are a few exceptions, but around here the police, fire trucks, ambulances, and tow trucks (running police work) all have red and blue lights.

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Florida, by statute - Police vehicles are blue, fire vehicles are red, ambulances are red and wreckers are amber.

Tennessee is the same by state law. Postmen are clear flashing. Best system IMO as you always know.

In casual observation, blue for police, red for fire and ambulance.

Depends on the department here.
They are either all blue or red and blue.

CALEA is the largest Law Enforcement accreditation agency in the country. To be accredited by them you have to run red and blue lights.
https://www.calea.org/

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Originally posted by ArtieS:
Florida, by statute - Police vehicles are blue, fire vehicles are red, ambulances are red and wreckers are amber.

Same in Arkansas.

Police could also run red lights in addition to blue, but I don't know of any agencies around here that do.

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Originally posted by 686Owner:

Looks like some police are red and blue in FL.

Weird. I read the statute and it made no mention of mixed red and blue.

NE. Red and blue. The LEDs everyone runs have some white in them too. The snowplows and state road crews are throwing in green w/ the ambers and white now. The Hydrant Humpers are red, blue, and amber. Tow trucks amber and white which is the same as the city/county work crews.

I am 99.9% sure Chicago PD runs all blue.

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:

quote:

Originally posted by 686Owner:

Looks like some police are red and blue in FL.

Weird. I read the statute and it made no mention of mixed red and blue.

I'm pretty sure that I have seen red & blue here in Florida. I'll look again.

Two of the guys who rent / fly the Cessna in my hangar are Orange County Sheriff Deputies. They frequently drive their cop cars to the airport. I'll have a look next time one of them comes in. One of them is a mountie but he doesn't bring his horse to the airport.

It's hard to tell when they are as blinding as the Sun. Four police cars at an intersection seven nights ago, one officer shining his flashlight into people's cars and yelling at them to go. I couldn't see him against the police cars' lights, so I have no clue if he's directing traffic or doing the Chicken Dance. The traffic light is red, so it's my turn to get yelled at and blinded with his flashlight on top of the flashing Sun lights. I roll my window down and tell him no one can see him. I get yelled at some more, so I wish Deputy Fife a good evening or was it Officer Fife, hard to tell when you can't see.

This was in Arcadia and I believe I saw blue and red flashers on the same vehicles, but again, being blinded, there could have been multiple vehicles parked side by side or something.

Here in south Miami they are red and blue.

Blue in the front, white in back, and blinding all over.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
It's hard to tell when they are as blinding as the Sun.

One of my pet peeves that so many of them seem totally oblivious to. And it’s not just emergency equipment that’s lighted that way either. Many of the nighttime road construction sites are lighted the same: they’re so bright and so poorly directed that it’s impossible to be sure we’re not about to run someone over, and then of course we will be at fault. And then there are the headlights these days that are capable of downing flying cicadas at 50 yards and the increasingly-popular illuminated billboards along our highways. Las Vegas definitely deserved the plague of locusts that their lights were recently blamed for.

Okay: back to red or blue.

In NJ, just about all emergency services (Police, Fire, Rescue, Ambulance) run primarily red and blue, with some amber and white sometimes thrown in.

Solid blue is reserved for volunteer EMS and FD in their personal vehicles. Operators of those vehicles must obey all traffic regulations, but, unlike PA referenced above, other drivers must yield to them as they would any other authorized emergency vehicle, when their lights are on.

In Ohio, the state patrol runs all blue with the exception of 2 red flashers in the grill. Sheriff's Offices are required by statute to run red and blue. Local agencies do either.

There's a real science to lighting emergency vehicles. Blue lights tend to be more visible at night, red during the day; amber is most visible at all times. The Florida Highway Patrol did an extensive empirical study about a decade ago.

Our DOT vehicles run an interesting combination of amber, green and clear and tend to be visible in all sorts of weather conditions.

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It's hard to tell when they are as blinding as the Sun.

They should have day time and night time modes. The brighter lights are good for use when it's light out, but blind people at that same level when it's dark.

Not only can you not see people when moving around those bright lights, but people also have a tendency to steer towards the lights when driving. Bad combination.

My last squad (2018) automatically stepped the lights down in brightness when it was placed in park. That said, when you are on a rural highway miles from the nearest streetlight, anything is blinding.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:

quote:

It's hard to tell when they are as blinding as the Sun.

They should have day time and night time modes. The brighter lights are good for use when it's light out, but blind people at that same level when it's dark.

Not only can you not see people when moving around those bright lights, but people also have a tendency to steer towards the lights when driving. Bad combination.

The better setups do have day and night modes, sometimes controlled by photocells. They also have different settings for pursuit, stops, blocking traffic et cetera. Some of our newer units killed the LEDs by the driver's position when in park to not blind the deputy when conducting stops.

Unfortunately, like most things in policing, budgets typically rule out the higher-end units.

I can recall starting out in the early 80's when my first cruiser had a single blue rotator centered on the roof. Needless to say, we didn't blind too many people, unlike today.

Looks like red and blue are common here in Pennsylvania