11/23/2023 0 Comments Dr gridlock![]() Culp: How often has he seen a personal injury accident well off the road? The lights on the ambulance are there for one thing, and that is greater visibility to motorists. ![]() ![]() He suggests we pull well off the road and turn off the lights. Culp proposes that ambulance drivers shut down their running lights soon after arriving on the scene of highway incidents. We would love to have people slow to a stop, because I know I will still be walking when we leave. If I could, I would put another 24 lights across our roof so that those idiots would maybe notice us. Our ambulances have about 24 red and white lights on the roof, and yet there still have been times a driver manages to drive right through an accident scene to practically kill me. Gridlock: As an emergency medical technician with a rescue squad in Maryland, I am frequently sent to auto accidents on I-270 and I-495. Garrett, said, "Our position is that we're going to continue to use the emergency lights that are provided to us until it is proven to us that not using them would be better." Dear Dr. As a Virginia State Police spokesman, Lt. One can get a sense from talking with the local officials that they may not have taken it upon themselves to look aggressively into other possibilities. "The perception from our study by some troopers and citizens was that the lights do help warn people that there is an accident situation ahead and they have to start moving out of the way." Maryland has just remodeled its cars to include the brightest possible overhead sequencing lights. "The only advantage we could find for not using lights was some savings in fuel economy because of less wind resistance," said Gunnar Kohlbeck, Virginia State Police's director of planning. They firmly believe that more lights are safer. Don't look for Maryland and Virginia State Police to change, though. "We have not had any cases where the lighting we now have is any less efficient or safe than the light bars on top," said an Illinois State Police spokesman. Now the cruisers have one red and one blue light on the rear deck of the car. The Illinois State Police also got rid of overhead light bars, primarily to gain fuel efficiency and speed. "We don't have any conclusive studies that say this is true, but we believe it is true," Huffaker said. CHP studies do indicate the lights create a "moth effect" that increases the chances of accidents because some motorists tend to steer where they are looking. Most California Highway Patrol cruisers have no overhead lights, and even the sealed-beam red forward light, and the amber rear deck light, are generally turned off once a stop has been made, according to CHP spokeswoman Alice Huffaker. HENNING Springfield You're right on many of these points, Mr. ![]() This might avoid rubbernecking and yet provide necessary safety for the officer and motorist during the traffic stop. Since our area police favor roof-mounted multilight systems, there is an option to install an amber light into most systems, or mount it on the rear deck. Reason? Past CHP studies showed motorists were attracted to patrol cars parked on the roadside with their red/blue flashing lights and if not attentive, would collide into stopped CHP patrol cars. Even if they have roof-mounted lights (mainly in urban areas), the CHP officer generally turns off his red/blue lights and leaves the single rear flashing amber light on. They use a "sealed beam" red spotlight to make the stop and have an amber light mounted on the car's rear deck to warn motorists approaching from the rear. Gridlock: The California Highway Patrol has a fleet of marked police cars without roof-mounted emergency lights, called slicktops. The number of letters received on this subject warrants a further look: Dear Dr. State police responded that they will continue to use their flashing lights because they feel that slowing traffic and drawing attention to the incident helps protect the officer and others at the scene from being struck. He contended this would reduce congestion caused by the common reaction to flashing lights, which is to slow down and gawk. Culp of Falls Church urged Virginia State Police and ambulance drivers to turn off their flashing lights once coming to a stop.
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