emtanderson51
Member
RMBROWN said:Why does pic 8 only have half of the push bumper on one side and not both? Just carious
I said:In the ninth picture' date=' I like how there's a what looks like a sheriff car next to the state trooper with an all amber lightbar, however nice history. :thumbsup: :yes: [/quote']
That looks like it's from Florida, that kind of thing is common there - community service, neighborhood watch, volunteer policing kinda things.
The Registry Police served the RMV. They became part of the State Police at the same time with the Metro Police...I'll try and get a pic up..Mrlunchbox said:What was the Registry Police? I am surprised I have never heard or seen of them before. Same goes for the Metropolitan Police. But then again I am only 30 years old.
Mrlunchbox said:What was the Registry Police? I am surprised I have never heard or seen of them before. Same goes for the Metropolitan Police. But then again I am only 30 years old.
emtanderson51 said:I love that model Caprice......Where in Western MA are you? I know a Zack from Northborough....
dmathieu said:The 1965/1966 or so Ford MSP cruiser had a Beacon Ray Model 17 that was split blue front / red rear.Dan
liberal noob said:It drives me nuts that the State Police does not put lightbars on their Dodge Chargers. It was rare for me to see a Ford State Police car in my youth. Tons of Caprices.
motorolamaniac said:Great post. I like seeing the different lighting options as the progressed. Interesting to see a bit of red in there on occasion. Looks like in the 60's they went from blue to red and back again. Tried red/blue in the 80's briefly and back to blue again. The MDC color combo is wicked different. I bet FS never built too many color combo domes like that in the US.
MAPMFF86 said:And there may be more color changes/equipment changes to come in the not to near future. A study was done by the MSP that was widely reported on by the local media that the current LED lighting may have contributed to a rash of MSP involved car accidents/mostly rear ended while the units were stopped on the highway. Basically the short and skinny of it is that the lighting is too bright, making it difficult to see anything else around or beyond the cruiser and contributing to the "moth effect" of people driving towards the light, especially those under the influence of drugs/etoh. So it'll be interesting to see if the MSP changes what they equip there cruisers with, and it'd be anyone's guess what they would revert back to.
opcorn:
emtanderson51 said:I said that on this forum 3 months ago......the "signal alert" pattern that comes as the default flash pattern on most of the new Whelen product is entrancing and has no dark time.....I eyed a new MSP Crown Vic done with a Valor and Fed Sig rear deck lighting....
dmathieu said:Back in the 1960s the Mass.State Police troop running under the Mass Turnpike Authority used Chrysler product stationwagons for cruisers. They were Irish green and white, and had a all red model 17 Beacon Ray. The regular SP had the French ans Electric blue cars with a slpit blue front / red rear Model 17 Beacon Ray.
Dan
dmathieu said:Since they started using warning lights, I believe blue has always been the primary color to the front on MSP cruisers.
Even back in the 40s, when the roof light was a flashing "beehive" type light, the color was blue. This is the case with most, if not all Massachusetts police vehicles.
Many used split domes, blue/front, red/rear.
One exception was the all red Beacon Ray used un the Turnpike cruisers in the 60s and early 70s. The Turnpike Authority could make their own rules.
You may find pictures of refurbished MSP cruisers sporting red domes. This is not accurate.
When lightbars came out, there may have been some mixed red to the front on some police cars, but blue has always been the primary color to the front.
Dan
Zack said:And of course, I'm pretty young in the grand scheme of things, but as far as I know in Massachusetts, Blue has been the exclusive forward color for Police and Red has been for Fire/EMS.
Not sure when these were standardized/agreed upon, but it sounds like dmathieu has a pretty good idea of the history.
Sarge619 said:You are correct Zack. In fact, it is under Massachusetts State Law Ch90 s 7E:
Section 7E. No motor vehicle operated pursuant to section seven other than fire apparatus, ambulances, school buses, vehicles specified in section seven D used for transporting school children, and vehicles specified in section seven I shall mount or display a flashing, rotating or oscillating red light in any direction, except as herein provided; provided, however, that nothing in this section shall prohibit an official police vehicle from displaying a flashing, rotating or oscillating red light in the opposite direction in which the vehicle is proceeding or prohibit fire apparatus from displaying a flashing, rotating or oscillating blue light in the opposite direction in which the vehicle is proceeding.
No motor vehicle or trailer except (i) a vehicle used solely for official business by any police department of the commonwealth or its political subdivisions or by any railroad police department or college or university police department whose officers are appointed as special state police officers by the colonel of state police pursuant to section sixty-three of chapter twenty-two C and subject to such special rules and regulations applicable to such college or university police department as the registrar may prescribe, (ii) a vehicle owned and operated by a police officer of any town or any agency of the commonwealth while on official duty and when authorized by the officer’s police chief or agency head and only by authority of a permit issued by the registrar, (iii) a vehicle operated by a duly appointed medical examiner or a physician or surgeon attached to a police department of any city or town only while on official duty and only by authority of a permit issued by the registrar, (iv) a vehicle operated by a police commissioner of a police department of any city only while on official duty and only by authority of a permit issued by the registrar, (v) a vehicle actually being used for the transportation of persons who are under arrest, or in lawful custody under authority of any court, or committed to penal or mental institutions, and only by authority of a permit issued by the registrar, (vi) a vehicle operated by a chaplain of a municipal police department while on official duty and only by authority of a permit issued by the registrar shall mount or display a flashing, rotating or oscillating blue light in any direction. The registrar may also make such rules and regulations governing or prohibiting the display of such other lights on motor vehicles as he may deem necessary for public safety.
Note how the first section of ch90 s7E allows police vehicles to display red lights "in the direction opposite of travel" and fire apparatus to display blue lights "in the direction opposite of travel". While not actually specifying that police cannot use red to the front or fire blue to the front, it is inferred by that passage, as, generally, we don't drive our vehicles around in reverse all the time as a rule.
In fact, right up until the 90's, it was not uncommon to see Mass DPW trucks and equipment operating with blue lights to the rear (guess they thought motorists would use more caution approaching a street sweeper if they thought it was a cruiser!).
Standard MSP Troop cruisers in the late '70's and '80's sported AeroDynics with all blue lenses to the front and red (driver side) and blue (passenger side) to the rear. I knew a few troopers and locals departments that swapped the passenger side lenses to red front and rear. That was a BIG no-no, and the RMV actually made noise about fining agencies violating the red to the front rule on police vehicles (including a town near where I work).
MSP cruisers on the MassPike (E-Troop) could get away with it because the MGL's did not apply to the Pike. It is/was considered a private road, the cruisers owned by the MTA and not the MSP (also, unlike regular troop assignments, E-Troop cruisers were not issued to troopers and remained on Pike property at all times) and as such they had carte blanche to do as they wished regarding equipping of their cruisers (a speeding ticket issued to a violator on I-90 was not the same as the Massachusetts Uniform Traffic Citation issued on "public ways". It was a "Violation of Massachusetts Turnpike Rules/Regulations). In fact, right up until the advent of the 800mHz radio system now in use by all troops (the intial portion of which was inherited from the MDC after the consolidation and the greatly updated and expanded upon) E-Troop cruisers operated off of a much more modern/effective VHF-High-Band repeaterized radio system while regular troops had to suffice with the old VHF Low-Band system. I remember the first Aerodynics to show up on the MSP were on the Pike (in 78 I believe on their newest Fords) and they had blue lenses on the driver side (f/r) and red lenses on the passenger side (f/r). Eventually, I believe starting about the time the Pike started equipping their cruisers with Whelen Edge 9000's (early 80's) they adopted the all-blue-to-the-front doctrine.
When regular troop cruisers eventually began sporting AeroDynics (the Pike, which had considerably more $$ to play with than the MSP, usually got the newest equipment before the other troops and served as a "test bed" for the latest technology for years), they were spec'd with the all blue front, split red/blue rear. Many local PD's, including my own, copied the MSP-spec bars.
The days of split color rotating beacons ended when the MSP switched from round-top Federal BeaconRays to flat-top Federal CJ184's with the integral siren speaker. The flat-tops had all blue domes (although it's entirely possible they may have experiented with split domes on the 184's, though I never saw one in the 43 years I've lived in the Commonwealth and been a keen follower of police vehicles through the decades).
gmack24 said:I notice these were all taken from
French and electric blue. :undecided:
French and Electric Blue
In the future please include the website so others can go enjoy all of the photos. :thumbsup:
Cheers !!!!!
Greg
Founder of French and Electric Blue
French and Electric Blue
killCARB027 said:The Mass State Police and the Boston PD have always had good looking patrol cars, I have a question about emergency lights on Mass State Police cruisers. I know that the Chicago PD was one of the first US police departments to start using Blue flashing lights on their patrol cars around 1960 or so however I notice that all vintage Mass State Police cars seem to have forward facing Blue lights even going as far back as the early
1950's or late 1940's. That restored 1951 MSP Ford sedan has a Blue rather than Red siren/light on the roof and what I'm not sure of is whether the siren/light on the roof of that vintage Ford patrol car was originally Blue or else Red like pretty much all other US emergency vehicles at the time. Did Mass State Police cars/motorcycles ever use the traditional all Red emergency lights or have their vehicles always been equipped with Blue lights going back to the first vehicles purchased by the department. If MSP vehicles have always used Blue warning lights then that's quite amazing because it would mean that MSP cruisers were probably the first emergency vehicles in either the US or Europe to be equipped with Blue lights.
dmathieu said:No wheel covers either. They used to run them into the ground. Old fleet.
Dan