Why do police cars have red and blue flashers on there cars? Why not green and yellow?
by 
Mech675
ANSWERS: 5
-
a flashing red light means stop, a flashing blue light means that they are authorized to treat red traffic lights as being yellow, drive on an emergency use only lane on a highway, and disobey the speed. Green and yellow would confuse people they would think it meant go and slow down, lol just joking on that one
-
No real idea but here in New Hampshire the police use exclusively blue and the fire department use only red. I've noticed that in other states the police use blue and red but that seems confusing to me.
-
Green is reserved for traffic signal. I think some squad cars use yellow.
-
These colors are easier to see in all road conditions. They have been tested for that!
-
Blue lights are relatively uncommon, even in a busy urban environment, so if you see a blue flashing light it is probably an emergency vehicle. Many communities (such as mine) use blue only for emergency vehicles - police, fire, ambulance. To me the addition of red is not particularly logical. It looks more impressive, but in an urban roadscape where flashing brake lights are common, red is unlikely to be nearly as eye-catching as blue. My surmise is therefore that the red is added because the police think it looks good. Followup Edit. Googling led to an excellent Wikipedia article on the subject, suggesting that red is more visible in daylight and blue at night, with red more eye-catching at all times. Amber was inferior at all times.
RELATED QUESTIONS
Copyright 2023, Wired Ivy, LLC