California Highway Patrol using 8mm LED Lightbars

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Just wanted to warn everyone if they haven't seen them already. Plain white cameros with super slim clear 8mm LED lights up top. From about 100 feet and greater, it's hard to see the lightbar. Lights up Red and blue up front, blue and yellow to the rear.

Personally, I like strobes best. It grabs your attention, unfortunately people rubberneck and crash because it attracts too much attention. Also, drunk drivers are mysteriously attracted to strobing lights and tend to drift towards them.

I think they went with the LEDs for reliability and stealth. Any other states use LEDs for Lightbars?

 

[B@rt]

Sleek design...

 

[Anthem]

I'll have to take a closer look at the cop cars here to see if they're LEDs. Lately I've noticed some of our guys have their very slim red and blue strobes mounted inside at the top of the windshield. Now it's damn near impossible to determine that what's in your rearview is bad news.

 

[Charles Bradshaw]

Neat!

 

[vcal]

Originally posted by Charles Bradshaw:
Neat!

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">But much harder to spot!

-I like cops where I can see 'em.

 

[Saaby]

Another reason is aerodynamics. Police edition Crown Vics aern't suped up so that they can do high-speed chases, it's so that they can drive with the lightbar on

 

[Ratso]

Too bad that cluster on the side just cancels out the sleekness (at least from that angle). I still miss those old turny ones. Those are cool.

Do any Cops in LA still use those old Mustangs?

 

[Lurker]

Spotted one yesterday on a fully-marked North Carolina Highway Patrol car. Very sleek. Pretty stealth, too. It's nice to see the public officials are keeping up with LED technology. I've seen a lot of LEDs in traffic signals, too.

 

[Bmccue1964]

Has anyone ever noticed the amber LED signals mounted on the side view mirrors on Ford products? Thet illuminate faster than the rear turn signals proving the point that LEDs are much faster to alert than the incadscents!

 

[JH225]

The new light bars are a good and a bad thing.

First of all, the reason that the companies are producing them is two-fold. The first reason is for fuel efficiency. The low rise bar obviously creates less drag than a normal light bar, therfore giving slightly better gas milage. The second reason is due to the fact that in many localities, officers have been getting rear ended when they are in "stealth" cars that have full markings, but no light bars on the roof. If a driver doesn't pick up on the flashing rear lights of the cruiser soon enough, it's too late. You will start seeing these light bars on most of the cruisers out on the highways.

There are problems with these low profile light bars, that have started to show up. First off, in a very sunny situation, the LED's are VERY hard to see. They are even hard to see in normal daylight in some conditions. Some PD's have since started to install 3 color LED's in the side view mirrors instaed of the single colors that were being used. This helps somewhat. The biggest benefit to the LED bars is at night and in foggy conditions, these lights can be seen up to a mile away. They are tremendously bright under these conditions.

And yes, the bars are VERY hard to see until they are turned on, which allows your local LEO to get real close to your car before you figure it out. By then, its way too late!! If you all of the sudden see the world light up in multi color behind you, the only thing you can say is.....OH, Sh*t.