Safety First - Emergency Lights For Emergency Vehicles
You're speeding down the road, doing about 70 and minding your own business. A glance into your rear view mirror makes you take your foot off the accelerator and slow down to 55. The flashing, red and blue emergency light is still far back, but approaching rapidly. Ever the pessimist, you think a cop has spotted you breaking the speed limit, from a mile back, and is now in pursuit. As the vehicle gets a little closer, you hear the siren and see that the vehicle is actually an ambulance. It whizzes by and you breath a sigh of relief. Gradually, you press down on the accelerator and speed back up to 70 miles per hour.
The emergency light on an ambulance is there for a very good reason. It is designed to give warning to other drivers to yield the right of way and make room for the ambulance. A good emergency light can easily be seen from a mile away. Most times, it takes a combination of a loud siren and a flashing light to really get the attention of a driver. Emergency lights work well in daylight, but really standout in the dark.
This is very important around accident scenes or in an area where the road is blocked off or obstructed. A police officer, arriving at the scene of an accident, will pull up 50 or 100 feet behind the wreck and quickly turn on his emergency lights to warn other drivers to slow down and take great precaution when passing the accident site.
There is no need to panic when you see a vehicle approaching from behind with a red and blue strobe light flashing in their windshield or atop their car. You should know that the law requires you to pull to the side of the road so the emergency vehicle is able to pass. Once the vehicle has gone by, you can reenter the traffic lane and continue on at a normal speed.
An emergency light can be programmed in 20 or more different patterns. Colors can alternate at different rates, staying on for a few seconds or maybe they can flash very rapidly. In general, the more urgent the need to get someone's attention, the brighter the display and the more rapid the lights flash.
Emergency lights on non-moving structures tend to flash slowly, in a predictable pattern. Barriers put out around a construction sight are one such example. Usually a yellow, cautionary light flashes on and off every couple of seconds, which is sufficient to warn people of the road condition. Lights atop a radio tower usually are a slow blinking red. While these are not really emergency lights per se, they do serve an important safety function.
So the next time you see an ambulance or other vehicle with its emergency light flashing, realize there is something going on that is out of the norm. Allow the vehicle to pass and be glad you are not involved in the situation.
