Police Car Flashing Lights — Why Use Them and Where to Get Them
Police car flashing lights are an essential piece of safety and emergency equipment for all officers, no matter their rank and department. They signal your presence on the road, showing other participants in the traffic that it’s time to make way for law enforcement and let them do their job as efficiently as possible. These lights come in a variety of types, they have different flash patterns, and, naturally, most of them have adjustable color settings. Let’s dive right in!
The Purpose and Function of Police Lights
As we’ve said, police flashing lights serve a number of important purposes crucial for smooth law enforcement work and road safety. Those include:
- Emergency signaling: Police cars are a sure sign there’s something going on, either on the road or nearby, but some people still don’t pay a lot of attention and fail to notice them. With a traffic light bar or even a hideaway LED (provided it’s powerful enough), you’ll make sure everyone sees you coming from afar. Combine that with a good police siren, and you’ll have a clear road ahead of you at all times.
- Increased visibility: Getting to the site of the emergency quickly is important, but you’ll want to stay visible when you get there, too, especially in bad weather conditions. With good lights, you’ll light up both your vehicle and the area around it, making sure your operation goes uninterrupted.
- Crime prevention: Prevention is better than the cure, as they say. It’s no secret that seeing warning lights on police vehicles makes a lot of people think twice before they break the speed limit or go through a red light.
- Communication with other law enforcement vehicles: Police officers often work in tandem with their colleagues. That means constant communication is a given. With a well-synced pair of lights, you can send all sorts of light signals to other officers on the road, signaling you’ve pulled someone over, for example.
Types of Lights
As for the type of lights usually seen on police cars, we can mention two in regard to optical technology:
- LEDs: LED lights are the most common lighting solution these days, and not just for police vehicles: they’re quite popular among safety machine operators, farmers, truck drivers, etc. LED bars are easy to mount on the roof of the vehicle, and they’re energy-efficient, bright, and usually have a lot of adjustable settings in regard to light and flash patterns.
- Strobes: Although not as frequent a sight as LEDs, strobes are still quite common in some circles, and for a good reason. Namely, they’re typically quite bright — brighter than some rotating LED lights, for example. That makes them great in harsher weather conditions or in those situations when you need to stay visible from greater distances.
Colors
When it comes to colors, things are a bit more complicated. In short, the color will sometimes vary from one location to another, but other factors might have to be taken into account, such as your jurisdiction, department, the type of vehicle you’re driving, etc. Usually, though, we see four different colors:
- Red and blue: Hollywood and popular culture are right when it comes to red flashing lights — they do usually signal immediate danger or an emergency situation. However, they’re usually combined with blue lights on police vehicles. Red and blue lights also signal it’s time for you to pull over or that the officer is looking for backup.
- White: White is likely the most common optional color for most types of police vehicles. You usually don’t see them used alone, but when you do, it’s probably because there’s, for example, a lot of fog. They’re also good for some urban night work.
- Amber: Amber lights usually have the lowest visibility, so they’re used as backup lights most of the time, especially on patrol and utility vehicles. If a regular police cruiser is equipped with amber lights, they’ll most likely be rear-facing, as they won’t be doing the bulk of the signaling work.
Although they’re not really common, we ought to mention green lights, too. Namely, they’re usually reserved for those vehicles that operate near and guard power plants, important government facilities, etc. They’re sometimes seen on private security and private police vehicles, too. However, it bears mentioning that they’re often used in combination with other lights, say, amber or white, because they’re often not that visible.
Perhaps needless to say, but you can’t mount any light up. You’ll, of course, need a permit before you can do that.
Where to Get Them
As police lights are an essential — law mandated! — additionn to every officer’s kit, it’s crucial that you get only the most reliable model before hitting the road. That’s especially true if you’re working in desert regions or up north, where ice, rain, and snow are an everyday nuisance. Luckily, you won’t have to look far for premium-quality lighting solutions thanks to SpeedTech Lights.
SpeedTech Lights is a leading vehicle lighting and equipment company. SpeedTech Lights shelves are replete with all sorts of lighting kits for police vehicles of all kinds, as well as a wide variety of LED directional light bars, traffic advisor light bars, directional traffic lights, and traffic advisors designed for other emergency and first-responder vehicles such as fire engines and ambulances.
SpeedTech Lights offers only high-quality products and at some of the most competitive prices on the market. Combine that with fantastic customer service, regular sales, extended warranties, and lighting-fast shipping time, and you’ve got the formula for the most reputable retailer.
If you need any kind of emergency vehicle lighting, look no further than SpeedTech Lights. And if you have any questions regarding installation or use, feel free to contact SpeedTech Customer Support, and their team will assist you in no time.
