My recently obtained Dutch Politie Liberty and Freedom. Both have primary blue lights, green command lights, and amber lights to use on scene (the thought is that amber is less distracting to passing drivers than is blue). Both bars are controlled with Honac ECU controllers and have Honac made control boards in place of the Whelen boards. They also have a few other Honac made components (e. g. the green modules on the Liberty).
Dutch Politie/Police Liberty and Freedom
- Thread starter gtpts27
- Start date
coop359
Member
Yeah these are my favorite Liberty and Freedom variants. The speaker isn't in the bar. I assume they are grill mounted similar to on US police vehicles. In the above video I just have the speaker off camera and underneath a folded towel and a pillow (to muffle the sound).
Sparky_911
Supporting Donor
Nolines
Member
Ok how the heck did they put green LEDs around the alley lights!!!??
Now all you have to do is find an annoyingly small non American car and mount that stuff on it for parades to make people from that country feel at home here in America, or run for their lives.... Either or!
Now all you have to do is find an annoyingly small non American car and mount that stuff on it for parades to make people from that country feel at home here in America, or run for their lives.... Either or!
k-9 police xj
Member
Honac (Dutch company that partners w Whelen) custom made the green modules/adapters for this bar. From what I understand, they had reliability problems, possibly due to heat from alley lights.
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kitn1mcc
Member
Command identification light for bigger incidents. From what I've been told, it is typically employed by the first arriving unit (as opposed to a later arriving higher ranking officer). I don't think it is used a lot.
kitn1mcc
Member
firebuff17
Member
Nolines
Member
With the new led alley lights they should be able to switch those out to mr11s or such in dual colors.
The Freedoms (which replaced the Liberties) are now being retired and replaced by FS Vama TrafficStorms (though they don't have the raiseable signs usually found on TrafficStorms). The Dutch Politie TrafficStorms do make use of dual color modules for the blue/amber but I don't know about the greens.
kitn1mcc
Member
There is a national contract for the vehicle and bar (not sure of length of contract but 6-8 years maybe?). The bars use fiberglass adapters that are form fitted to the particular model vehicle, so bars can't be remounted to a different model vehicle (well it would require manufacturing a new adapter).
The Liberty was paired w the VW Golf as the primary patrol vehicle. They were replaced by the Freedom/VW Touran, which is in turn being replaced by the Mercedes B Class and TrafficStorm.
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tsquale
Lifetime VIP Donor
It's the rarer of the two for sure as the Liberty w amber and green was only in production for a year or two before they switched to the Freedom. Prior they didn't require amber and the green modules on the Liberties weren't custom, nor were they on the ends (they were just front/back tir 3 modules).
Cleaning Traffic
Member
Could swear I saw this bar on a BMW police car in Spain. Still researching and keep you posted! Green was displayed to show perimeter vehicles I thought..... ?
Both of these bars are Dutch specific bars with a few components and the control system made by a Dutch company specifically for them (the company used to be called Honac, now it's called Modiforce). With that said, obviously there are a ton of Liberties and Freedoms in service and, given that other countries use signage, it's certainly possible there are similar looking bars out there. Spain tends to use FS Vama products but that doesn't mean Whelen products aren't found there.
The color usage described above is correct for the Netherlands. Other countries may very well use the same colors for other purposes. Heck amber remains a primary emergency color in Spain for fire and EMS (though I understand EMS at least is transitioning to blue).
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Cleaning Traffic
Member
I believe you are right. Most do use Vama in those areas. Just remember seeing a lot of those countries using green for perimeter/checkpoint purposes. Not a bad concept in the use of certain colors for certain assignments, especially for aerial coverage and unit identification (helicopters)