Emergency Lights: Advance Warning Systems
The bright red lights atop the fire truck and the flashing blue-and-red lightbars of police cruisers are easily the most recognizable emergency lights. However, the field of emergency lights encompasses a wide range of specialized lighting solutions, including handheld traffic advisors, lightbars for tow trucks and ambulances, takedown lights, and temporary traffic barricades. Emergency lights are designed to provide maximum visibility for official public safety vehicles; as a result, these lights are designed to produce bright, highly-visible light that can be easily seen by surrounding vehicles and pedestrians.
Handheld traffic advisors are used by police officers to direct traffic around accidents, construction areas, road hazards, or when traffic signals have malfunctioned. These emergency lights typically incorporate LED technology due to the lightweight nature of LED bulbs; this allows more illumination and visibility to be produced by the traffic advisor without creating excessive weight for the officer to carry. Traffic advisors are among the most versatile emergency lights, since they can also be used in temporary or permanent installations both on road construction barriers and on emergency vehicles.
Lightbars are most often seen on police cars, fire trucks and ambulances; these emergency lights are also used for tow trucks, diving rescue vehicles, and even for vehicles that see dual use as personal transportation and official vehicles. LED lightbars have become more popular in recent years; they offer several major advantages including reduced heat production, lower energy costs, and lighter weight. This makes them an outstanding choice for use both inside and outside vehicles, since they will not significantly affect the temperature of the vehicle’s interior. The reduced heat produced by LED emergency lights also serves to minimize the risk of burns from contact with hot bulbs.
Takedown lights are another important category of emergency lights; these brilliant spotlights provide police officers and other first responders with enough light to see in even the darkest, most forbidding areas. This is especially important in the apprehension of suspected criminals, but is also useful in accident situations or even for reading house numbers when responding to a call. Takedown lights are available in high-intensity halogen, LED, and incandescent bulb models, although the popularity of incandescent lighting solutions has waned in recent years due to improvements in the LED emergency lighting field.
Solar-powered emergency lights for use on permanent sign installations have become increasingly common in recent years due to an increased emphasis on environmentally responsible technologies. These emergency lights require no additional power and typically include a solar-charged cell that stores energy on sunny days to power the lights during the night and on cloudy days. Like all emergency lights, these solar-powered installations serve to warn the public of a hazardous situation, the approach of an intersection, or any other traffic conditions that might merit extra caution.
Emergency lights are designed for optimum visibility and are intended to protect the public against dangerous situations and to provide advance warning that caution is required. A wide variety of emergency lights are available on the market, making it easy to find the right lighting solution to suit any public safety agency’s needs.
