Lights and Siren?

[Eeyore]

I vote for purple strobes on all CAP vehicles

[Flying Pig]

If for some reason you feel the strange need to have flashing lights on your POV, stick with yellow. This reminds me of the Youtube video of those cadets stopping to help people on the Interstate with the Hunt for Red October song in the background.

[A.Member]

If for some reason you feel the strange need to have flashing lights on your POV, stick with yellow...

This whole desire to have flashing lights on a POV is just bizarre to me.   Or maybe I'm the odd duck...

[SarDragon]

I go out a couple of times a month chasing ELTs, and having a flashing yellow light and an air band radios makes it a lot easier to get around the local airports in my 'Burb.

[winterg]

Let's be really different and get rotating beacons with blacklights! Yeah!  Can you imagine the parties?

[Duke Dillio]

I used to have a Vector lightbar on my Jimmy but I was also doing private security at the time (can you say Rent a Pig?)  For CAP, it wasn't so bad to use the search lights on the sides and front.  You could also use the rotators when you are on the tarmac.  I worked with an aircrew one time that found the shape of them helpful from above.  Other than that, not a huge issue.  They were yellow so legal in Colorado at the time.  They were also free so that was a big bonus.  I wouldn't recommend them to everyone but they were a pretty good tool during FTX's when you wanted to light up the whole area like daylight.  Kindof pointless at times though since we don't do a whole lot of night searches.

[MikeD]

Let's be really different and get rotating beacons with blacklights! Yeah!  Can you imagine the parties?

I'm SO there!  That'd be awesome!  :clap:

[Rob Sherlin]

  The revolving magnetic amber light is good enough for me. Besides the other uses (if you work on airfields and such), they add visibility to other drivers if you have roadside trouble (yellow is mostly considered a "caution" color...unlike blue, or red which are used on other "emergency" vehicles). In most states, the amber rotating lights are legal to use, because they havent had too many problems of people using them without common sense. If people start driving down the road with amber lights flashing, there better be a good reason for it other than "wanting to be somebody with authority" (you better have a car in front of you catching fire or something). That's when they start making laws against people using them.

[JayT]

I vote for purple strobes on all CAP vehicles

One of the SM's in my Group has that...........

Anyhow......

I've had good luck with a small yellow flasher ontop of a van, to help establish and maintain air to ground commincation, but beyond that.....

I don't think I've gone hot more then a dozen times at my private ambulance company in the six months I've been working there. It's simply not needed.

I know in my copy of 'Emergency Care in the Streets,' hot responsives are actively discouraged.

It always cracks me up watching the Vollys coming in screaming hot to a hospital with a sprained ankle, while I came in with an ALS crew, with a man in chest pain, with negative lights and sirens.

[arajca]

Be very careful about such generalities. They may very well have a written policy that requires ligths and sirens for all calls - I've seen it done. Also, as you may well know, lights and sirens can make a chest pain response worse by increasing the tension.

[JayT]

Be very careful about such generalities. They may very well have a written policy that requires ligths and sirens for all calls - I've seen it done. Also, as you may well know, lights and sirens can make a chest pain response worse by increasing the tension.

Yeah, but just because policy says "Bring a patient who has a sprained ankle in lights and and sirens twenty miles over the speed limit" doesn't mean the policy isn't stupid.

[wuzafuzz]

Food for thought: A few years ago I saw a black YUGO with full lightbar rolling code three (red lights and siren) down the highway.  NO ONE got out of its way.  All I saw was people with perplexed expressions wondering what the heck.

We do have volunteer fire departments in my neck of the woods, it was probably one of them...I hope.

POV's with emergency lights don't create much respect, if any.  Keep it low-key unless you want to be lumped in with the worst of the wannabe crowd, and drag the rest of us with you in the time proven habit of guilt by association.

Those mag mount yellow lights have their place.  I'm not railing against those.  FWIW, when I worked on airports we only used our flashy lights when we were actually on the runway or taxiway.  Not on the ramp.  When CAP showed up on the ramp with flashing yellow lights and driving stupid we asked them to turn the darn things off and drive safe, or get a ticket.  Funny thing is, pilots drive their POV's on the ramp all the time without fancy whiz bang goodies.  As long as your head is on a swivel and not in your 4th point of contact, all is well.  If you are parked on the side of a busy highway, flash everything you got...lights that is. 

[Flying Pig]

Interestingly enough, here in CA (where pretty much the majority of police tactics and training originate) the California Highway Patrol recommends that officers shut their lights down after the stop and while they are stationary on the shoulder while doing stops at night.
They started doing a study after several officers were killed or injured after being plowed into by drunk drivers, and even some non-DUI drivers.  They found that people were like moths, especially drunks, and were focusing on the flashing pretty lights which caused them to drive right in to the back of the patrol car.  When I do stops on the freeway, I only use my front facing red light and thats it.   An usually after the stop, I shut them off and only use my spotlight.  Most times though, I just leave my steady forward facing red.  No strobes or wild deck lights.

Maybe something there for those of you who feel the need to look like a Christmas tree when you looking for an ELT.

[MIKE]

Why is this thread still going, it was answered in the second post?

[Eclipse]

http://swivelchairpatrol.blogspot.com/



Plenty of this wanna-be madness on YouTube as well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLV028LwY-E

Look around and you'll find a fair number of stories where members, or members who are also affiliated with other Whacker organizations, seriously impacted our credibility, or worse, because of nonsense like this.

A single orange rotator or strobe for safety when off to the side of the road or on an airfield - fine.
Spend more on the lights than on the car, you're a Whacker.  For the record, one major factor in my vehicles not looking like the above (the are bad enough as-is), is the fact that I am married, and my spouse acts as the common-sense
valve.

We are not a first-responder agency, do not require response within the Golden Hour (how could we when its generally 1-2 hours before AFRCC lights us up), so a few minutes in traffic would have no bearing on the success of the mission.

We need to act with expediency and urgency in our response, but not Code 3, or 1 or even 2.

[Flying Pig]

Why is this thread still going, it was answered in the second post?

C'mom MIKE...were just talkin'!  And we've managed not to call each other names!

[PHall]

To those who seem to think that they need a gazillion flashing lights on their vehicle because they do UDF.

Take a look at the utility company (phone company, cable company, water department) vehicles in your area.

They work along the side of the road all the time in any kind of weather and visibility and they have a minimal number of flashing lights.

The phone company truck I drive just has a yellow strobe light mounted on top of the ladder rack.

If the "pros" don't need a light show, then why do you?

[_]

To those who seem to think that they need a gazillion flashing lights on their vehicle because they do UDF.

Take a look at the utility company (phone company, cable company, water department) vehicles in your area.

They work along the side of the road all the time in any kind of weather and visibility and they have a minimal number of flashing lights.

The phone company truck I drive just has a yellow strobe light mounted on top of the ladder rack.

If the "pros" don't need a light show, then why do you?

Don't know where you are but around here the utility trucks have so many lights that you get blinded any time you drive past them at night.

[lordmonar]

Did we not have this conversation in another thread?

Bottom line....what you put on your POV is your buisness and the buisness of your local/state laws.

Using your POV for a mission requires pre-approval by wing wing....hopefully they will limit the do-dads that peope hang on their cards.

If it is leagal....a caution marker on vehicles used in UDF or on flight lines is not a bad idea....but not really necessary.

You need enough lights to be seen a good safe distance.  If that means bars on front and back of your van or a single roating beacon....then so be it.

[pixelwonk]

http://swivelchairpatrol.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the plug.  I'd just like to say that's not my car. 

de,
One-antenna'd, no lights K9QQQ