New Responder Vehicle Visibility Report from USFA

MESDA6

Member
Jun 2, 2010
920
Central IL and PHX
Just released. The pdf report can be found here. Best Practices for Emergency Vehicle Visibility | 1/17/13 Press Release


The report primarily shows examples of reflective markings and rear light arrangements being used by various types of responder vehicles worldwide to increase rear visibility. Structural firefighting apparatus are specifically excluded from this report since NFPA has guidelines regarding chevrons and rear lights on apparatus. It appears that the intent is just to show what other departments are doing and pass along ideas, and not to make anything standard.


:popcorn:
 

WS224

Member
Nov 28, 2010
1,049
West Tennessee
Seems pointless. A bunch of varying examples that go from one extreme to the other.
 

Flashguy

Member
Jan 4, 2011
842
United States, Florida
Umm...what was the point of that? I saw a few vehicles on there with chevrons going the "wrong" direction. I'm all about sharing what works for others (hello ELB!) but showing wrong stuff too? Then again...we do have a screwed up install thread, don't we?
 

pop2one

Member
Feb 7, 2012
63
Texas
They should have just created a photobucket account that said, "Crap we found on the internet". That was worthless. It looked a lot like a Google Image search.
 

twodogs603

Member
Sep 7, 2011
1,196
Norfolk,VA
All the lights and reflective material in the world is useless when people just dont pay attention driving down the road. No one wants to slow down when they see an emergency vehicle anymore. Add to that the distractions of cell phones and texting and those shaving and applying makeup while driving. All add to a deadly mixture.
 

MESDA6

Member
Jun 2, 2010
920
Central IL and PHX
pop2one said:
They should have just created a photobucket account that said, "Crap we found on the internet". That was worthless. It looked a lot like a Google Image search.

And that my friends is your tax dollars at work. Exactly why i used the :popcorn: emoti after I looked at it. They even issued a press release about releasing that POS report......
 

JazzDad

Member
Aug 5, 2011
5,165
USA
Re: "These images were obtained during a federally-funded research program and are included to demonstrate additional alternative choices for the marking of vehicles in the United States."


Where do I sign up for this job? I want to travel all over the world to snap some pix.


Also, it seems to me I've seen some of these patterns before. Hmmmm, where was that...


pattern.jpg
 

tsquale

Lifetime VIP Donor
Oct 12, 2010
10,511
Minnesota, USA
JazzDad said:
Re: "These images were obtained during a federally-funded research program and are included to demonstrate additional alternative choices for the marking of vehicles in the United States."



Where do I sign up for this job? I want to travel all over the world to snap some pix.



Also, it seems to me I've seen some of these patterns before. Hmmmm, where was that...

You mean jump on google and rip off some images?
 

Storm4200

Member
Nov 2, 2011
2,912
NJ
wow. completely useless :hopeless: :bonk: :duh: :weird:
 

DJZS

Member
Dec 17, 2012
38
VA
pop2one said:
They should have just created a photobucket account that said, "Crap we found on the internet". That was worthless. It looked a lot like a Google Image search.

I thought the exact same thing.
 

picone239

Member
Jul 22, 2010
274
Paramus, NJ
I found it to be very educational...I can sell my rear and side lights and just tape a few pieces of cardboard with chevron striping to my car
 

GBEngineer

New Member
May 15, 2012
6
United Kingdom
Seriously the author of that document should be very ashamed, a random collection of undated images with no attempt to explain the reason behind the variations for instance due to different countries traffic laws in what reflective colours can be used and no references to any of the multiple research projects around the world into vehicle conspicuity.


All of those English police car/van examples of West Midlands Police stripes are also years out of date having moved towards the battenburg design for which there was not even one proper example of the UK Police design.


If you seriously want to know more about conspicuity start at this site Ambulance Visibility Blog | Emergency vehicle visibility and conspicuity research & comments for the Police, Fire, EMS and Ambulance: The AV Blog is written by John Killeen and read all the research papers he has references to and you will see there is no magic solution but the method that works best is a consistent visual image for all vehicles stopping in hazardous locations that highlights the shape of the vehicle and provides a contrast to the surroundings e.g large areas of solid flouresent/reflective colour.
 

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