What is the process? Red flashing lights

bigjl

Car_54 wrote: »

I think you're missing the point. A beacon has to be "capable of emitting a flashing or rotating beam of light throughout 360° in the horizontal plan" which a rearward-facing lamp cannot be. The requirement for at least one beacon actually to be visible is in addition to this.

Luckily nobody in the Emergency Services is that bothered.

Technically the light on the pole of a Police or Ambulance bike is a beacon, I personally don't know of anybody that called them a beacon.

And as we are being pedantic.

What is a "horizontal plan"?

If you mounted it on a wall would it be a "vertical plan"?

Tiddlywinks

Yet another basic question derailed by the 'I'm cleverer than you" brigade.

bigjl

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

Yet another basic question derailed by the 'I'm cleverer than you" brigade.

It wasn't me that started moaning about the use of the word "beacon".

bigjl

Car_54 wrote: »

AFAIK red beacons are illegal except on police vehicles, and then only at the rear.

Hang on a second.

You were the one saying we were incorrectly using the term "beacons".

But you seem to have said that a vehicle can have red beacons at the rear?

Where can you buy a Red Beacon exactly?

I have seen green, blue and Amber. Not seen a red.

You can have flashing blue, amber and white lights to the front.

Flashing Blue red and Amber to the rear.

Insuppose it may surprise some people that those using lights every day at work may misuse the term "beacon"

Is that a result of the old rotator lightbars perhaps more properly being described as a beacon?

Or because it makes little difference?

And this is before we mention the small LED modules that fit inside the rear lights. Which are probably more common than Red LED Modules fitted to the lightbar.

Car_54

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

Yet another basic question derailed by the 'I'm cleverer than you" brigade.

The basic question was derailed in post #8, where the OP changed his story, and the red lights were now at the rear.

Silver-Surfer_2

bigjl wrote: »

Hang on a second.

You were the one saying we were incorrectly using the term "beacons".

But you seem to have said that a vehicle can have red beacons at the rear?

Where can you buy a Red Beacon exactly?

I have seen green, blue and Amber. Not seen a red.

You can have flashing blue, amber and white lights to the front.

Flashing Blue red and Amber to the rear.

Insuppose it may surprise some people that those using lights every day at work may misuse the term "beacon"

Is that a result of the old rotator lightbars perhaps more properly being described as a beacon?

Or because it makes little difference?

And this is before we mention the small LED modules that fit inside the rear lights. Which are probably more common than Red LED Modules fitted to the lightbar.

Call them what you like but if you use his definition of a beacon, I've never seen one on a uk police vehicle. When they used beacons there were only blue ones fitted.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

jeeze point scoring thread or what! made me yawn reading this one.

bigjl

Silver-Surfer wrote: »

Call them what you like but if you use his definition of a beacon, I've never seen one on a uk police vehicle. When they used beacons there were only blue ones fitted.

Under lighting regs red should only point backwards.

However LEDs are so bright that even if they are pointing rear wards you will still see them in front to an extent as they will reflect of buildings and other vehicles.

The only blue "beacons" I have ever seen used to be on Robbery Squad or similar plain clothes units and they were used because the drivers weren't Class 1.

I have never consciously referred to them as beacons, only roof lights.

It is only recently that the old Halogen rotator lightbars have started to be phased out, they were often fitted to Trojan units and some DPG cars. But LED modules use less power and last longer than Halogen and need very little maintenance, I still feel they are too bright at night, ours had a dim setting for night use but you had to manually select it and few people do.

Just as an aside the Met now use LED Modules fitted high up on the windscreen as they were fed up with the roof lights coming off at speed.

With wigwags now being phased out in favour of white LED modules in the grille beside the blue ones.

To get back to the OP

I personally think that this vehicle did not have forward facing Red lights of any description and what he has seen is probably reflections from rear facing Red LEDs.

That is if this is a genuine thread instead of a dark matter.

As transportation of Medical Teams is not routinely done by Ambulance Trusts.

The contract for moving the medical team could well be tendered for an won and then be done by an NHS Ambulance Trust. But it is more commonly St Johns. St Johns used to have a vehicle they sent out with a Team on it, but I haven't seen that around for years, you regularly see the CATS Ambulance though. They are based near GOSH.

But it is extremely unlikely that a Medical Team would be transported by a Private on behalf of an Ambulance Trust and be branded as such. It is extremely likely that a Private would brand their vehicle to indicate working with a non Ambulance NHS Trust, they often do so in order to display the NHS branding on the vehicle.

Most of these Medical Teams are going on ahead to stabilise a paediatric patient prior to the BETS, CATS or NATS Ambulance arriving.

When NHS Trusts win these contracts (such as BETS at the Royal London) transportation of the Medical Team doing the retrieval will usually be done by the Ambulance doing the retrieval.

Silver-Surfer_2

bigjl wrote: »

Under lighting regs red should only point backwards.

However LEDs are so bright that even if they are pointing rear wards you will still see them in front to an extent as they will reflect of buildings and other vehicles.

The only blue "beacons" I have ever seen used to be on Robbery Squad or similar plain clothes units and they were used because the drivers weren't Class 1.

I never consciously referred to them as beacons, only roof lights.

It is only recently that the old Halogen rotator lightbars have started to be phased out, they were often fitted to Trojan units and some DPG cars. But LED modules use less power and last longer than Halogen and need very little maintenance, I still feel they are too bright at night, ours had a dim setting for night use but you had to manually select it and few people do.

Just as an aside the Met now use LED Modules fitted high up on the windscreen as they were fed up with the roof lights coming off at speed.

With wigwags now being phased out in favour of white LED modules in the grille beside the blue ones.

To get back to the OP

I personally think that this vehicle did not have forward facing Red lights of any description and what he has seen is probably reflections from rear facing Red LEDs.

So you've never seen one of these then?

bigjl

Silver-Surfer wrote: »

So you've never seen one of these then?

Not in over 20 years no. And to be honest there weren't many around then so it wasn't really at the forefront of my mind. But you got me fair and square I didn't even think to consider stuff of that era.

I should clearly have added the caveat "recently" to my comment.

Though technically that was an on scene light, the Metro and the later Fiesta with a similar light never had a siren fitted.

But where does the distinction between a "beacon" and "lightbar" begin?

As the Met had for years a small lightbar on the Astras etc that only contained two halogen rotators and was only about half a metre long roughly.