By Bill Adams
Against my better judgment I drove to the fire station the other night for a dinner meeting with some of the old timers. Normally, I don’t drive at night especially when it’s raining or snowing. I had to drive home in the rain at the speed of smell trying to dodge delivery vans parked helter-skelter all over the roads as well as drivers obviously too old to be behind the wheel at night. And to top it off, the local deer population didn’t get the memo that the rutting season was over. The real excited ones were ignoring the posted deer crossing signs.
Amazon
Anyhow, a long ways ahead of me I see this vehicle stopped halfway in my lane that had a red LED strip lighting outlining the vehicle’s rear end. It was an Amazon delivery van and obviously a new one. What a brilliant idea. This van’s back end had about 24 linear feet of continuous red lighting outlining the top and down both sides. If somebody rams into that at warp nine, they don’t deserve a free ride to the hospital. When I got home, I looked up Amazon’s delivery vans on the Web. Being all-electric, driver-friendly, and all that sales propaganda is immaterial to me but to give them some credit for the lighting package, they are made by a company called Rivian.
Livery
Later that evening I was thinking they stole my idea – or part of it. Or, at least I had written something similar to it before! Fifteen years ago, I wrote a guest commentary in another forum about fire apparatus livery. I’m not talking about horse drawn steam fire engines. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines livery as “a concern offering vehicles for rent – also the feeding, stabling and caring for horses. But the Cambridge dictionary defines livery as “the colors or design which are put on a company’s vehicles and other things that it owns or sells.” I’ll go with the Cambridge definition because it better fits my narrative.
The former article was about the colors and types of rear chevrons and striping on fire apparatus here and abroad. One gentleman working for a European fire truck manufacturer was quoted saying, “there is a general European requirement for contour marking.” He went on to mention the various colors, shapes and types of reflective markings (not lights). Some countries require specific contour marking, chevrons and colors by law.
Grumpy Old Men
So, stupid me brings the topic up with the Raisin Squad at morning coffee. Now I know how the movies Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men got their titles. Their directors must have tape recordings of these white-haired geezers arguing with each other during morning coffee. Some of them can make sense, but others are out in left field – all by themselves. And the real old ones argue just for the sake of arguing.
I said contour marking is a good idea showing the approximate size of a vehicle. The raisins disagreed. “Maybe with scotchlite but not with lights. Contour lights gotta be too damn expensive – especially them new LEDs.” Not necessarily, I said. They are everywhere now – in your cars, home light bulbs, computers. “Yeah, but most of them are too bright – they hurt your eyes.” Not all of them. There’s low intensity LED compartment lights, dashboard lights and even LED lights on pump panels. “You guys keep coming up with expensive stuff to sell us.” I’m retired. “It don’t matter. You started the conversation.”
The next morning it didn’t get any better. I started it by saying the better you can outline a fire truck the better it is for motorists to realize how big it is and that it’s not moving. “That ain’t gonna work especially with all them super-bright flashing, twirling and spinning lights. Most of them are so damn bright you can tell if the rig is going, coming or has stopped.” I said to turn them off when you get to the scene. “Turn them off? Why the hell did you sell them in the first place? These young kids will want your contour lights to flash too.” They got the best of me. I left.
Later that week I wandered in for morning coffee planning to break the chops of one white hair over some other insignificant item. He fired first with “Hey Dipstick – you remember that time years ago when you tried to sell (….an unnamed fire company….) a rescue truck. You told them it was cheaper to use imitation gold leaf than real gold leaf. You said you damn near lost the sale.” I was just trying to help them because they didn’t have much money.
He fired back with, “Or how about the time you were peddling a pumper to that department in the next county over? You told their truck committee that gold leaf lettering and striping was just expensive advertising and they should use white scotchlite because it wasn’t as expensive and they could see it at night. Remember how that went over?” Yes, I said. It wasn’t one of my smartest statements. “I guess not. Eliminating real gold leaf is blasphemy. Its damn near sacrilegious. If I remember correctly, they wanted to run you out of town on the working end of a pike pole.” He laughed so hard he almost lost his dentures.
So much for promoting non-flashing contour lighting on the rear if not on all sides of fire apparatus. It works to identify raised aerial devices. I’m sure with all whiz-bang electrical stuff the warning light manufacturers have come up with, the lights could be red when responding and automatically switch to amber when parked. Something as big as a fire truck outlined in amber lighting is probably something most motorists might not want to run into. Just make sure there aren’t any raisins on the purchasing committee. They can be dangerous even when not driving.
BILL ADAMS is a member of the Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment Editorial Advisory Board, a former fire apparatus salesman, and a past chief of the East Rochester (NY) Fire Department. He has 50 years of experience in the volunteer fire service.
