Visual Warning Devices
Emergency vehicles of any kind (fire truck, ambulance, police car) are highly likely to be involved in hazardous situations, including relatively common incidents such as a road traffic collision. They are also required to gain access to incidents as quickly as possible, and in many countries, are given dispensation from obeying certain traffic laws; for instance, they may be able to treat a red traffic light or stop sign as a give way, or be permitted to break the speed limit. However, emergency vehicles usually are not able to treat a railroad crossing as a give way, because a train cannot be warned in time to stop before the crossing to let the vehicle through. Hence, one of the few things emergency vehicles must yield to are heavy freight and passenger trains.
For these reasons, emergency vehicles in many countries worldwide, are fitted with visual warnings to alert members of the public (and in particular, other motorists and road users), either as they approach the vehicle, or it approaches them. Visual warnings can be of two types - passive warning or active warning.
Read more about this topic: Emergency Vehicle Equipment
Famous quotes containing the words visual, warning and/or devices:
“To write well, to have style ... is to paint. The master faculty of style is therefore the visual memory. If a writer does not see what he describes—countrysides and figures, movements and gestures—how could he have a style, that is originality?”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The relationship between mother and professional has not been a partnership in which both work together on behalf of the child, in which the expert helps the mother achieve her own goals for her child. Instead, professionals often behave as if they alone are advocates for the child; as if they are the guardians of the child’s needs; as if the mother left to her own devices will surely damage the child and only the professional can rescue him.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)