I agree with you, it is a stupid rule to exclude bluelights as an emergency vehicle.  I know there were two major concerns about having volunteers running emergency lights, first many of the volunteers are young inexperienced drivers teenagers.  The likelyhood that they abuse the lights and/or cause a serious accident by blowing through lights was very high.  Also there were concerns that with so many people running bluelights (Volunteer firefighters, Emts and Firepolice) that more people would try and impersonate cops and pull people over.

 

Our bluelight law states that we must have a lightbar that can been seen from 360 degrees and possibly one dash light.  We cannot have any hide-away lights, grill lights or anything that could possible resemble a undercover cop.

A lightbar for a volunteer responder? That's pretty cool. I've never seen anyone around me with a lightbar, but there are probably some people with them in other parts of jersey. We are allowed to have a blue/white flashing christmas tree for a car if we want to, I believe, however it is frowned upon to have all of that stuff. I've never seen anyone around here with a crazy amount like that. We aren't even required to have any lights at all near me. They are optional. We are allowed to have any flashing blue and/or white light we want anywhere on the vehicle. The only things we are strictly prohibited from having (unless high-ranking) are red lights, a siren, and flashing headlights and taillights. I guess it is different in every township, county, etc.

I think it's pretty interesting how it varies with this stuff from state to state. Some states are allowed to have any lights they want I think, only reds, only blues, etc. I know in new york in the 5 boroughs, especially brooklyn, most of the volunteers are Hatzolah and I've seen them with red and blue lights. Also I saw on a website that volunteer EMTs in NY have green flashing lights. Maybe around christmas time they can put up red and green to be festive lol

 

A lightbar for a volunteer responder? That's pretty cool. I've never seen anyone around me with a lightbar, but there are probably some people with them in other parts of jersey. We are allowed to have a blue/white flashing christmas tree for a car if we want to, I believe, however it is frowned upon to have all of that stuff. I've never seen anyone around here with a crazy amount like that. We aren't even required to have any lights at all near me. They are optional. We are allowed to have any flashing blue and/or white light we want anywhere on the vehicle. The only things we are strictly prohibited from having (unless high-ranking) are red lights, a siren, and flashing headlights and taillights. I guess it is different in every township, county, etc.

I think it's pretty interesting how it varies with this stuff from state to state. Some states are allowed to have any lights they want I think, only reds, only blues, etc. I know in new york in the 5 boroughs, especially brooklyn, most of the volunteers are Hatzolah and I've seen them with red and blue lights. Also I saw on a website that volunteer EMTs in NY have green flashing lights. Maybe around christmas time they can put up red and green to be festive lol

Correction on my part: The state vehicle code requires you to have a light that can be 360 degrees around the vehicle, this can mean full light-bars, mini-light-bars or beacons.  You cannot have hideaways or white take-down lights on your vehicle at all.  In reality we cannot even have dash lights but most police forces don't care as long as they are solid blue.  The law is actually quite outdated now that we have mini-leds and lights that can be mounted inside the vehicle.  However you are correct when you said every state and township has it own code to it.  Also it depends on the Fire Company policies if you run them or not.  

Example, my old company allowed blue lights but were subject to company policy and training.  In order to run a blue-lights you must complete a course called EVOC (Emergency Vehicle Operators Course) and were subject to company regulations which just mirrored the state law.  If you were caught speeding, running red lights or driving like an idiot your you told to take off the light-bar.  

Many companies shy away from using them because to many kids think they own the road and drive terribly putting a bad reputation on the Fire Company, if you have a light-bar its like having a giant sign saying your a volunteer in the area, and trust me when I say that people will not stop until they get ahold of the chief.  Without a light-bar your just another idiot driver.

Downside to having a blue light you cannot travel down south without removing your bar or beacon.  Should the cops spot you they will make you take it off or cover it up with a black bag or something similar since police only run blue-lights down south. 

I think it is quite simple.  You see red lights in traffic very often - the same can't be said for blue.  There's a massive distinction and you're able to immediately identify a flashing blue light as an emergency car.

Also, there's some decent logic to the fact that red lights tend to indicate the back of a car, and white to the front.  In the UK, many police cars do actually have red lights, although they are only visible from the back.  This makes it easier to know which direction the car is facing, and is also used to signal that the car is stopped.  On traffic stops, it is common for only the red rear facing lights to be flashing, showing that the police car is stopped.

IIRC, the studies actually said that blue was more visible at night, and red was more visible during the day (not sure why, but I suspect it has something to do with the sky being blue). Of course, back when these lights were introduced, amber lights were by far the most visible: early emergency lights were white light with a colored filter, and amber filters let through the most light.

Well, it's because of the European histoy! In the Second World War the countries had to protect their first responders (no matter if police, fire or ems) against the air airstrikes from the germans. And we had to protect our from the airstrikes from the allied forces. It's because like Brand said. Red has a longer wavelength. As a result it's more visible from a longer distance. From the air! And the other thing is, traffic lights, taillights. ..are red. The traffic is full of red lights. Blue is an outstanding color. Even in the nature blue is something exotic. It's highly visible at night. And with the LED'S highly visible during the daytime. In my opinion it's the best and logical choice for emergency lights. Not only the police has blue lights. Every first responder. NOBODY is allowed to use red. It's against our traffic laws. But you'll see red/ blue or all blue in the east european states like Russina, Poland, Slowakia. ... And in Spain they use amber for EMS (ecxept SAMU, they use amber/red), all blue for police and amber for fire. Sometimes amber/ blue for fire to the rear. But they aren't allowed to use red or blue by law. It's like in New York State. Police isn't allowed to use blue to the front. But some PD do.

That's absolutely right! The reason, why EMS and Police use the blue light (in Germany) is, that it's the best visible color, even at daytime. Nice to know that it's based on the European history.

David i have a disagree  with you. Its seems that nobody here, even most cops dont really know why police cars using blue lights. Its NOT because its best visibility color.

Rreason is , that Blue color light is only color which can be seen by all. That i mean even  peoples with Colour Blindness. Red and more blue color can be seen by colour blindness .

http://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/types-of-colour-blindness/

Our city uses all blue lights, EMS and Fire uses red/white. I'm still on the hunt for the red glare lighting in GTA V files to see if that can be changed for the police.