Red v. Blue

[RealSnow]

Hello! I guess you can consider this a question, and I do believe this is the section it should go under. 

 

Throughout playing 911: FR an all it's brilliant mods, especially the ones based off of real places detail for detail, I've noticed a huge diversity in the red and blue lighting on police vehicles. I live in Virginia, and I don't very often travel out of it. Virginia State Police use all blue, not a single speck of red on any of their vehicles. The county I live in, has a single red light outfitted on most of their newer vehicles. Those being the Chargers and Taurus, and that's located in the rear windshield. Their light bar and ram bar are fully blue. Then counties over, and nearly all red. When I think fire truck, I think red with red flashing lights, and pretty much the same with ambulances. I don't think I've ever seen one outfitted with all blue in person. Then you look at NYC, nearly all of their police lights are red, and I don't understand why. Personally I really like an all blue setup on police vehicles. 

 

That brings me to my main question: Is there a reason places like NYC prefer the mostly red and white setup over blue, and is there a reason police vehicles much more often have blue lights compared to other emergency services? 

 

Oh, there was some big bike race today and there was pretty much a cop at every single intersection I went through, and of course a few cops anywhere the bikers crossed the road. I saw a huge variety of our police cars, pretty sure I saw every marked car type we have. Saw a good few undercover Impalas and what looked like the 2010 Ford Explorer undercover. Pretty neat seeing so many cop cars in such a short period of time. 

[Newfoundking]

Basically, the idea of a certain light type is ONLY tradition. There is a lot of research relating to people's visual responses, but some I've noticed are heavily biased towards the locale. 

 

If you're in NYC where nothing has front facing blues, you're less likely to respond to blues faster than reds. Yet if you're in say England where everything is blue, the inverse is true. 

 

Each type of light has a different benefit though. Red is a traditional emergency, blue is more visible. Yellow is a different type of response visually and otherwise. I'll see if I can find the study, but they broke it down to what people respond to, where they do it best, and of course, the visibility. 

 

But yeah, tradition is the number one factor in colouring lights, mostly due to people responding. Reminds me of when FDNY tried yellow trucks. Although yellow is more visible than red, people didn't know what to do with it, they were used to fire engine red, not school bus yellow. People get used to stuff, and that's why it's not changed. 

[RealSnow]

That makes things seem a lot clearer. I was thinking perhaps there was some huge reasoning behind it, I overthink things sometimes. I was pretty sure red and blue were used for visibility anyways, being primary colors and all. I know different states have different laws on what color lights are used. In California, is it just the CHP that's required to have the steady burn red light facing front? 

 

Also, thanks for the quick reply. I've been learning how to skin and do decent lighting in hopes of a little private mod. So I was interested in what was considered when emergency vehicles are lit. (Lots of thanks to the modding community, especially Itchboy and Bama)

 

If you're still looking for the study, I'd be delighted to read into it. 

[Newfoundking]

Everything that's an emergency vehicle HAS to have single red front facing steady burn. Technically that's ALL you need to be an emergency vehicle in Cali. Mikesphotos did a full post on it years ago. 

 

The majority of the US (some exceptions) have red white blue for LE, Red for fire and EMS, and almost everything (fire trucks by NFPA regs) has amber rear facing lights. 

[LAD23DER]

I had seen somewhere that federal vehicles are the only emergency vehicles allowed with front facing blue lights in NYC.

[Newfoundking]

Similar to in LA, where federal vehicles don't have to have the steady burn light. Federal vehicles are exempted from many state/provincial regulations if they aren't federal too

[Wkboy714]

I've seen some studies that show red is the most visible in daylight and blue in darkness. Hence why, possibly, a lot of the darker and more northern countries like the UK and Scandinavia have only blue.

[PaganiZonda760]

Germany only has blue :´/

[Handsup!]

Like NFK said, it's more tradition than anything, and familiar lights. In the UK, we call sirens/lights the 'Blues and Twos' (blue lights, two-tone/hi-lo siren), because we're used to blue lights. Seeing a red light would probably not trigger the same response as blues. We only use reds for redirectional purposes and occasionally they'll be put on steady burn while officers patrol at night.

 

To me, blue stands out quite well, red can blend in with street lights and brake lights but big flashy blue lights seems to work

[RealSnow]

I've got a question that there can't really be a clear answer to, so I guess I'm asking for an opinion. 

 

When this Virginia State Police (Go Virginia!) CVPI flips his lights on, you'll note there is a single light on the left side of the rear window. Unless you're in a Country where the right side of the road is the err, right side and not the left side, you'll probably agree it's to let traffic know to get over. There's a law, can't remember what it's called, that states you're required to get over a lane if available or slow down to a "reasonable speed" when passing by.

 

https://youtu.be/3KQiw_xRfAU?t=10s

[mercurygrandmarquis1]

The law your referring to is called the move over law. And it looks like the VSP car has dual leds on the deck possibly broken

[RealSnow]

Oh no, they've all got it. I live in Virginia Unless they're all broken. 

[firefighter111]

The reason that NYC, and the entire state of New York, do not run blue to the front is blue is considered a curtsey light for volunteer FFs. Volunteer FFs are legally allowed to run one forward blue light to the front when responding to FD calls, so the general public knows they are responding to these calls, and can offer the FF the curtsey of passing them to get to the call. The volunteer ff associations in NY are very against anyone else having a forward facing blue light, particularly PD. The reasoning is that if PD had forward facing blue lights, a criminal might one day see a FF responding to a call, think it's an unmarked PD vehicle coming to arrest them or something, and blow them away. Law enforcement in NY may have blue lights to the side and rear though, and if you look, you will notice that most of the newer pd vehicle have blue to the rear and sides. NYPD for example, the two rear pods on the vector bars are blue to the rear and the rear dual deck lights are red/blue on your standard car. As for federal vehicles, they fall under federal law, not state law, and the federal colors are red and blue, so therefore they can use both.

[Corsair]

This makes more sence because I really always wondered this but never asked.