posted
Just a brief comment here about something somewhat surprising... I'm watching CNN and seeing some video clips of the Iraqis conducting a (possibly/probably staged) search for Western pilot(s) in the Tigris River.
They had a brief shot of an Iraqi police car, with flashing red, white, and blue lights on the roof. I suppose that some standard of identifying civilian enforcement agencies is out there and pretty much worldwide -- so it's not that surprising -- but at the same time it was an unexpected sight for downtown Baghdad under Saddam's control.
Trivial compared to everything else that's going on, I know, but I thought I'd ask about it. Is there some kind of international standard on something as simple as outfitting local police forces?
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Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
Well, considering there are no white or red lights on police cars in Europe, no.
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Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I believe blue is considered a standard police-car-light color. I've heard that there are actually laws against having blue lights on a car (like neon underlighting or those windshield washer LEDs) because it's reserved for cop cars. Don't know for sure if that's true, though.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
It depends on where you are. Where I am, it's illegal for any vehicle other than a police car to have a blue light -- fire and ambulances can only have red and whites, for example.
posted
Now that you mention it, I don't think I've seen any service vehicles with blue lights around here. However, there are cars with blue customizing lights. Ambulances have red and white lights, police vehicles have red and blue lights, and everything else has yellow lights.
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Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
In Tennessee, you can't have a blue or red flashing light on a private vehicle. Don't know about codified distinctions between the two, though.
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Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
There's a generic law here in Finland about it being illegal to deliberately make a civilian vehicle look like it was operated by rescue or other authorities. All rescue/police vehicles have blue lights, construction/service vehicles have yellow beacons, and all such vehicles have to have identifying text somewhere.
However, we produce a lot of ambulances and other special-chassis rescue vehicles that feature the weirdest of paint jobs and lighting arrangements. Why does an Irish ambulance look like a German paddywagon? And why do Russians love gloss-black ambulances?
posted
In the UK the Road Licensing Regulations allow only the following services to display blue lights on their vehicles: Police, Fire, Ambulance, Mountain Rescue, Coastguard, Mine Rescue, Human tissue & Transplant, Forestry Commission Fire Service, Army Bomb Disposal, Naval Nuclear Monitoring, Blood Transfusion Services, RAF Armament Support, Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
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Registered: Feb 2002
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Blue and red are reserved for emergency services, amber linear lights for general services vehicles, snow plows, farm vehicles, private security cruisers, etc...
The wig-wags, headlight flashing solenoid, are illegal to have, as my friend found out after being a volunteer fireman in KY and coming to MI and not being one. A good thing the cop was a guy we hung around with in school, otherwise the warning wouldn't have been so nice. Plus, what a way to meet an old friend, getting busted by him.
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Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
Show's you how smart the Iraqi governement can be in oppressing its people when they put the colors of the American flag on their own emergency service vehicles. What interests me most about this particular thing though is the Iraqi's "search".
To quote Lt. Gen. Abizaid, CentCom;
quote:But I did note that the Iraqis were searching for what they thought to be a downed American pilot, and you can see by their actions, shooting into the water, that their search-and-rescue techniques leave a lot to be desired.
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Registered: Mar 1999
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"Show's you how smart the Iraqi governement can be in oppressing its people when they put the colors of the American flag on their own emergency service vehicles."
And also the UK flag! And Australia! All their enemies! What were they thinking?!
Oh, wait, they're also the same colors as the flags of France and Russia, both of which countries are against the war.
And then, of course, there are Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Iceland, North Korea, Laos, Liberia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Serbia-Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, Taiwan, and Thailand (and maybe some I missed), all of which have nothing to do w/ anything.
Gee, I wonder if maybe those three colors can be used totally separate from any sort of flag-related significance whatsoever?
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
So the reason New Zealand, Australia, and the UK have those colours is...?
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Registered: Mar 1999
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