Emergency Vehicles Lightbars Need To Be Seen
One of the most dangerous parts of a police officer’s job is working in vehicle traffic. A police vehicle must be visible. There are several ways law enforcement agencies attempt to make police cars more visible to other motorists, but the most important aspect of the package is the lightbar. Police agencies are not alone. Fire crews, emergency medical crews, and road crews all need emergency vehicle lighting to increase the safety of not only emergency personnel, but also the safety of other motorists on the roadway.
Lightbars come in many shapes, styles and designs. They can be mounted on virtually every part of an automobile. Traditionally, lightbars consisted of rotating lights with halogen or incandescent bulbs. In recent years most law enforcement agencies have found the benefit of lightbars with LED-based lighting.
LED lights have many benefits. The most important is their brightness. The lights provide critical warning to vehicles approaching an emergency vehicle. The LED lightbars are very compact and can be placed in areas of a vehicle that were previously unable to support lighting. Many emergency vehicles now have a lightbar mounted in vehicle grills, on side mirrors, even mounted on the sides of car doors. The result has been an large amount of flashing light projected towards approaching motorist.
Another benefit to agencies using LED-based lighting is the low maintenance costs. With the traditional rotating lights, there was several moving parts that could fail. In addition, the light bulbs contained filaments that would routinely break, causing the light to go dark. With an LED lightbar, there are no mechanical pieces to fail. There are no filaments to burn out.
An LED lightbar is also a valuable tool for directing traffic. Many motorist assist and law enforcement vehicles are equipped with programmable a lightbar that allows the operators to provide specific directions for approaching motorists. For example, if a traffic accident has caused a lane of travel to be blocked, the light bar can be programmed to display an arrow, or series of flashing images, directing approaching traffic to move right or left. This allows approaching motorists to understand what direction they will need to merge. With traditional rotating lights this was not possible. Drivers would need to get close enough to determine what lane was blocked and then make the appropriate lane changes.
Lightbars are a critical part of every emergency vehicle. LED lightbars allow the flexibility to mount the items in areas traditionally not used for light mounts due to space constraints. This, coupled with the increased durability and visibility of the LEDs make an LED lightbar a top choice for emergency response agencies.
