Red/Blue Laws - A thread about lights

[Adam Ploessl]

There are more, I just grabbed the first 2 I had bookmarked. There are some others that address response and better resource positioning over using lights and sirens and limiting the use of lights on a scene. When you only save average of 2 minutes on a call and only 5% of the calls dispatched as emergent are true emergencies where patient outcome would change due to a quick response, it's hardly worth it. Most of the lights and sirens responses are done just because that's the way it always has and people have lots of emotional attachment to running with them. If we actually used evidence based guidelines like everywhere else in EMS and applied them to lights and sirens, I would't rarely, if ever, see them used.

Regardless, I still stand by my statement that there is no need for any stormchaser to be using anything more than 4ways for any reason.

 

[James K]

In the past few years here I've started seeing non-emergency vehicles (construction/maintenance/etc) with flashing lights in additional colors than the standard yellow/orange - mainly white, but I've seen red too ... and there's the fact that some of those "white" LEDs are borderline blue, especially viewed from a distance. (so in the distance you have what might look like an emergency vehicle, and it just ends up being a maintence or utility-ish truck parked on the side of the road)
I really dislike whatever change in the rules they must have done to start allowing those extra colors. Its totally unnecessary and if anything takes away from the purpose of lights on a real emergency vehicle. Yellow-only works just fine for such a vehicle.

I also find those yellow lights that flash in various wild patterns distracting & annoying. A simple on/off flash is plenty good for a 'normal' vehicle... .lol.