"This ain't no party, this ain't no disco
This ain't no fooling around.
This ain't no Mudd Club or C.B.G.B.
I ain't got time for that now."

Richmond VA PD has a blue single light on whenever on duty.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

Usually it’s a substitute for actual police work.

Instituted by people who never did actual police work.

We would work very well together, Sir.

We call them bunny ears.... Stupid trend.

Is it better or worse than the other light trend? So many, so bright that you blind everyone on the road and force them to slow down to dangerous speeds.



I used to know of a volunteer Fire Department who had to run their lights everywhere they went, I was told some insurance thing due to all the accidents they'd been in (and probably caused). They used to have a presence at the state fair every year and would drive some of their vehicles on what was an 8-10 hours drive with all the people/stops. Lights all the way.

I had a car one time that was set up with those. I think the equipment guy saw it on some TV show and thought it looked cool. It was not. It was annoying as hell.

The Carson siren and light control boxes we use have a 3 position toggle for the red and blues:

Position one is typically set up for the rears only. We use this a lot of we're stopped to mark a road hazzard, stopped behind another officer, or slow-rolling in a lane of traffic trying to locate something or trying to get traffic to slow down because of an obstacle ahead...it keeps people from running into the back of us without altering traffic flow in the opposite direction.

Position two brings on the front red and blues in addition to the rears.

Position three adds white takedowns and flashers to increase visibility.

The problem with the solid constant-on end caps was that he wired them into position one, so I no longer had an option for rear lights only. If I was crawling along looking for something and trying to alert traffic behind me, oncoming traffic would see the red and blue end caps out the front as well, get confused, and do all kids of unpredictable stuff. I finally managed to get them to change them back. It was a dumb idea that caused problems without solving anything.

quote:

Originally posted by chongosuerte:

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

Usually it’s a substitute for actual police work.

Instituted by people who never did actual police work.

We would work very well together, Sir.

Probably also created by the same managers who mandate wearing brightly colored traffic vests at every major public event, even if you're not assigned a traffic directing post...

The cruise lights are just the latest Whelen iteration. I'm good with turning them on at a scene, but it's a distraction if they are driving around with them turned on.

My job was to catch bad people doing bad stuff. Not to advertise (unless for safety purposes) my presence to them.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
I see local & state police do that around here [N Houston] as well.
I assumed either accidental, or something of a 'hey there's a cop on patrol here, be good' type of thing.

I'll add to this, that I've only ever seen it on the highway & major surface streets. Never in neighborhoods or anything like that

Today I saw red, blue, yellow on a deputy's Explorer. From behind, the bar was solid (not flashing) half red, half blue and then yellow starting on the left moving to the right until the whole bar was yellow. Then the yellow was replaced left to right by the half red and half blue, repeat.

The deputy was driving down the road with no siren, just the lights, and didn't appear to be pulling anyone over.

What in the world are those lights supposed to mean? Let's Groove?

I deleted my other post because it was probably too harsh.

Believing that this type of policy somehow reduces crime is ridiculous. At best, it MAY delay or relocate crime. It does zero to prevent it.

What it does is reduce contact between the criminal element and law enforcement. They see the radio car coming a couple miles away and they stop the deed that they are doing until it is out of the area. Admin loves this because the less contact cops have with criminals, the fewer use of force incidents, and more importantly, the fewer bad press opportunities. But in the same breath they get to say “See us in your neighborhoods, oohhhhh pretty lights”

If this actually worked, there would be zero crime in mall parking lots. Too many LE agencies have gotten away from actually doing police work and rely on gimmicks to justify budgets.

We started driving around with our "cruise lights" on during covid. Our department stopped a couple of years ago but still seems popular with other south Florida agencies. It was supposed to make us more visible after there were "no cops patrolling in my neighborhood" type complaints.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:


It's weird to me that our local police (town and county) have fairly-recently adopted red lights. I guess I'm old... growing up, we knew that red lights were for fire department vehicles, blue lights were for police. Now the police are using red... [shrug].

Here in Missouri, department vehicles, fire law, or EMS, must have red. The vast majority also have blue, even though it's not required. Blue only is for volunteer fire personal vehicles. Green is typically incident command.

Other states are different.

quote:

Originally posted by 400m:
That sounds like a retarded policy to appease a few constituents. And dangerous as well.

Yes and Yes.

Dumbest shit ever…

Made up bullshit by some limp-dick, rusty-cuff, empty holster, never-done-nothing prick that makes their way up the ranks by attaching their lips to whatever “boss” that will promote them.

Prove me wrong.

Yeah, they do it so thieves see them coming, and they don't have to do any real police work.