The Colors And Places For Police Car Lights

By Author: Sunil Punjabi
Total Articles: 2565
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The earliest police vehicles did not have any specific lights. Some jurisdictions painted stars or badges on the doors. But steadily the use of sounds and lights became de rigueur. A Police vehicle wants to advertise its presence in no uncertain terms on occasion and there is no better way than to have a set of bright flashing lights. Police car lightsare designed to be just that; bright and flashing.

In the 1940s the first roof beacons were introduced. These were colored domes with a single bright light inside which switched off and on. The trouble is that incandescent lights depend on a filament heating and glowing and these burns out if they are constantly switched. This was made even worse when Halogen was introduced being much brighter but more likely to fail as they get very hot. Then the rotating beacon was introduced which was very successful as the beam seemed to sweep around. And seen from a distance appeared to flash and certainly drew attention. So for many years Police car lightsconsisted of one or 2 rotating blue beacons on the roof.

Then came the first lightbars. Instead of having ...
... to drill holes into the roof to fit a beacon it was found effective to mount the beacons on a single platform which could be fitted into the roof channels. Very soon we had many police jurisdictions using 2 or 4 of the rotating beacons as well as a white light that could be trained as a searchlight facing forward on a lightbar as their standard police car lights. This is known as a "take down" light and can be used for training on the occupants of any suspect car. It is not legal anywhere for a white light to shine backwards.

This remained standard for many years. The only development was the fact that more and more police combined red lights with blue in order to get more attention. Variations started to develop for unmarked police cars who needed Police car lightsfor responding to 999 calls or for chasing bad guys but most of the time did not want to be conspicuous. So they developed things like the 'wig wag' which alternated the cars headlights and beacons that flashed behind the grill. They also had an internally held spotlight for use as a "take down" light. The trouble with most internal lights was the power drainage and heat buildup.

In the early 21st century the LED has come into its own. Before this it was always an indication of current and a diode but never used as a light source per se. But development began and nowadays a 3 watt led is perfectly normal. Because they are robust and give off little heat they use very little current for the amount of light emitted. Wired together in an array they become a very real source of illumination. Also a LED comes with its color already and is not affected by being switched often. Now most Police car lightsare illuminated by leds.

On the roof for regular Police car lightswe have the lightbar which may will be red and blue programmed to flash in a variation of patterns. The more rapid the flash the more urgent the situation appears. Used for pursuits and responding to emergencies. When they revert to a slow steady flash they are on station or at a scene or roadblock and are generally not mobile. There is usually a white light facing forward which is used for scene illumination and as a "take down" light.

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