When the red lights are on for an emergency or pursuit situation, their backside is flashing, as one would expect, but the front side is solid red-- continuously illuminated. I don't think I've seen that on police cars on any other TV show or movie (nor in real life). Was this done to avoid optical or exposure problems with the movie cameras mounted on the front of Reed and Malloy's car, or did it represent standard LAPD procedure at the time?
shareI've noticed that too and wondered, and even brought it up to some people who *should* know. Sadly, I've never gotten an answer beyond "That was LAPD policy." (And we all know how this show adhered to authenticity when it came to LAPD.)
It's really kind of stupid, though: the point of the lights to begin with is to catch people's attention & let them know an emergency vehicle is nearby. Seeing solid red lights in my rearview mirror isn't going to tell me anything-- I'll just assume it's taillights from cars going in the opposite direction. But flashing lights in my rearview will catch my attention.
And honestly, I don't know what purpose the flashing lights serve for anyone behind the patrol car. What good do they do??
The California vehicle code at the time, and may still, required that emergency vehicles have a solid steady burning red lamp showing to the front and an amber flashing lamp to the rear of the vehicle. This is the setup the LAPD chose as their lighting system. If you notice the ambulance and fire engines may have a revolving light on top, but there would still be a NON-FLASHING red light some place on the front of the unit and a FLASHING amber light to the rear. They kept this set up until they switched to a full lightbar style in the late 70's. The California Highway Patrol at the time usually only used a red lamp in the driver's side spot light to comply with the law. If you go to YOUTUBE and run a search for LAPD old school you will find a couple of documentaries that will show you real units from back then. Also, real LAPD units did not have alternating flashing lights for the rear lights. Each rear light flashed separately with it's own flasher unit. One other thing is that California law did not allow for any other siren sound than wail, even though the siren could make a yelp or alert tone it was not a legal siren tone in the state.
shareThank you for the information. Now that you mention it, I do remember seeing cop shows and/or movies from the '40s and '50s where that single red spotlight (near the driver's-side mirror, if there was one) was being used.
I (we) remain puzzled as to why state lawmakers, or whoever influenced them, would have called for this standard. Back in the first half of the 20th century, were they thinking that attention-getting flashing lights on an emergency vehicle would just confuse drivers and therefore work against safety?
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Now the cops use blue lights.
It varies. Chicago police cars use all blue lights while Illinois State Police use red, white, and blue. Some of the state patrol cars have displays that put the Ecto-1A from Ghostbusters II to shame.
I think that law enforcement agencies should use every angle, including lights that flash, as sirens aren't quite as effective as they once were. Car radio and sound systems and drivers who regularly run either the heat or AC (and thus keep windows closed) result in drivers not hearing sirens as soon as they should. I think that's why flashing lights--blue probably being best--are more effective than solids.
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Now the cops use blue lights.
DarkKnight1954 is correct. The California vehicle code STILL requires that an authorized emergency vehicle (law enforcement, fire, EMS) display a steady burning red light per Sec 25252 CVC.
From the 2014 California Vehicle Code:
"25252.Every authorized emergency vehicle shall be equipped with at least one steady burning red warning lamp visible from at least 1,000 feet to the front of the vehicle to be used as provided in this code.
In addition, authorized emergency vehicles may display revolving, flashing, or steady red warning lights to the front, sides or rear of the vehicles."
Even the super awesome led strobe lightbars that we use now still have at least one steady burning red light on the front. The biggest problem with this is that no other state, at least of which I am aware, requires the steady burning light, so you have the mass produced 49 state lightbars, and then the Democratic Peoples' Socialist Republic of California approved lightbars at a much higher cost.
Also, the DPSRC now recognizes both wail and yelp for siren tones, but no others.
be wary of strong drink. it can make you shoot at tax collectors...and miss.
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I'd been wondering about the solid red lights, too. I just thought that maybe it was part of the 'evolution of police lights.' After all, if you watch Dragnet you'll notice Friday using a solid red HAND HELD light from the passenger side while Gannon was driving...this, of course, was in an unmarked car. I often wondered how effective it was to have him moving the light from side to side and waving his hand to get people out of the way. But, I guess they used whatever they had available at the time. :)
shareA few years ago I encountered an example of solid warning lights being a decidedly BAD idea. One local ambulance used to have a lightbar whose lights at the left and right ends were VERY bright solid white, like spotlights-- so bright that when viewed from a distance they completely hid the flashing red lights that were adjacent to them. When you approached that ambulance at night, your first thought was not, "Oh, an emergency vehicle, let's pull over"-- it was, "What's going on with that car-- have they forgotten to switch off their high beams?" And mere seconds can count in road situations like that, particularly if the ambulance is traveling at high speed. The manufacturer had put too many components in/on the lightbar, working at cross purposes to each other. Now the designs are moving toward very sharply-defined LEDs, so that may help.
(Similarly, some recent cars have small front turn signals right next to the low-beam headlight in each headlight module, so when the car is ready for a left turn at night you really can't see the flashing left-turn signal until you get very close to it. That design choice will probably contribute to accidents.)
http://www.lapdcops.com/?page_id=54
This page will give you insight into the LAPD patrol units then and used on the show.
thanks for that link. pretty cool.
be wary of strong drink. it can make you shoot at tax collectors...and miss.
DarkKnight, thanks for the great link. Lots of interesting info.
I just noticed something odd in the opening titles of the "Air Support" episode (both parts). Adam-12 receives a call while cruising the streets at night, after dark. At the moment we switch to a long front view of the moving patrol car, its lights come on-- not just the roof lights, but the headlights... as if Malloy and Reed have been driving around with all of their lights off. (I saw it at the beginning of part 1 and waited for part 2 to make sure I hadn't been imagining it.) ????
Ironically, Skywatch episodes were on METv this evening, I believe what you are seeing is that instant they are switching from low beams to high beams for the Code 3 run. Since the 4th season they would switch on their high beams anytime they made a high speed run day or night for better visibility to other drivers. What I find comical about that scene is as we see them on patrol getting the Code 3 call they are surrounded by heavy traffic, yet when the scene switches to the long front view as they are making the U-Turn to respond, there is not a car to be seen any where near them. The street is deserted!
shareInteresting that they would time the edit so precisely to give the startling effect of all the lights coming on from nothing. It certainly gets the viewer's attention.
Ah, the irony: Last night I was given a demonstration of why that old California lighting law may have (inadvertently) been on the right track.
Up ahead of me a cop had someone pulled over, at the outskirts of a small town. We were on a (dimly lit) two-lane road with very narrow shoulders, so I would have to move to the left lane to go around the two cars. The police vehicle had one of those dazzling setups, like a big fireworks display: blindingly bright lights of multiple colors and sizes that seem to stutter and strobe in all directions, and some might be on the trunk, in the taillights, or who-knows-where. In other words, wretched excess.
The problem with that kind of setup: If you're approaching it late at night from behind on a poorly-lit road and you see those lights rapidly pulsing in and out, you don't really know if they're big or small. Their strobe effects create illusions of movement. And the display is so bright that everything else in your field of view looks pitch black. So you've lost any context that would indicate a sense of scale, i.e., the actual size of the vehicle. How, then, can you judge whether you're 300 feet from the police car, or only half that?
As I approached at 30 mph (in a 40-mph zone), I thought, "Okay, in about ten seconds I'll have to pull to the left to go around him." Suddenly I realized that all those intense strobing lights in the midst of blackness were creating a false 3-D effect that was screwing with my depth perception. "Whoa-- he's actually much closer than that. Gotta pull around in about THREE seconds!"
I got around the two vehicles without any further problem, but it was not reassuring. With only a traditional roof-mounted light bar on the police car there would have been no such uncertainty. And that was at only 30 mph. What happens on a dark highway when someone comes up behind a traffic stop at 55 or more, and those parked fireworks are blocking half of the lane, and they're so busy and confusing that it's hard to tell how far away they are?
By going into such overkill with these displays, the lighting designers may be sabotaging the very goal of safety that they were aiming for.
Somebody want to explain why on the close-ups, the red roof lights do not flash; yet in shots where the unit is screaming down the highway, the roof lights are flashing in the front.
shareOn Adam 12 you will never see that lights flashing on the front, only the rear. California vehicle code requires that red lights to the front are what is called "steady burn" and the amber to the rear flash. This show being a Jack Webb production strived to being as realistic as possible. If you follow the link in one of my above posts you will get all the information you will need.
shareA while back, I was coming down a small road at night. There were two or three cop cars at a stop with all lights blazing. After being out in the unlit country, my night vision was totally shot by the modern, over-the-top cop lights. I slowed to a crawl as I passed, and got YELLED at by the cop to get moving. I guess he thought I was gawking. Sorry, officer--I figured slow was good when you can't see!
shareRegarding the guys (and they probably ARE 'guys') who create those lighting rigs, I wonder if they secretly had dreams of a career that they were never able to achieve-- designing professional fireworks displays.
shareInteresting. I wonder if they were actually spot lights designed for use at the scene that were turned on by mistake. You often see ambulances and squad cars with fixed spot lights to use when at a scene.
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