We have NEVER seen any emergency response vehicle in the United Kingdom before! Volvo and BMW Police Cars? WHAT!? This was so cool to see and everything is so very different to the United States! Different sounds, different colors! We have loads of questions and would really appreciate your help in the comments section. UK has some very nice vehicles and we love learning and seeing things like this for the first time with you! Thanks to each of YOU for watching! If you enjoy our content, please consider subscribing to our channel, it is the BEST way to support our channel and it's FREE! Also, please click the Like button. Thank you for your support!
The red ambulance cars are usually have critical care paramedics and doctors on so if a ambulance crew go to a complex trauma job, they can ask for back up from the advanced trauma car or helmed
The blue lights come from the original vehicle lights law. The law stated that you may only show a white light to the front and only show a red light to the rear. When emergency response vehicle were given lights, blue did not break the law. Rotating or fixed red lights to the front would make the vehicle illegal to used on a public highway. Doctor first response cars have green lights, usually crewed with a doctor and a paramedic. You may notice that vehicle registration plates (you know them as license plates) are reflective white on the front and yellow on the back. You cannot have reflective white to the rear!
For a real insight into the UK watch Auditing Britain our national treasure and the responses he gets engaging with the authorities .You will learn a great deal about UK policing , public services and places of interest. that are not on the tourist maps. I am fascinated by your 1st amendment audits as the give such great insight into the American way and how the public utilities compare to our own.
My life was saved by an advance trauma team after a rather bad bike accident. They cut me open on the side of the road to keep me alive. I'm in tears every time I think of what they did for me. Their skills are beyond belief. I still ride a big bike thanks to Dave , Andy and Cathy.
Tail Lights - red. Brake Lights - red, Fog Lights - red, Traffic Light Stop - Red. Blue means emergency services only and get out of the way. Doesn’t matter which service it is.
Orange is used for general warnings, so that means turn signals, road works lighting, traffic lights (of course), pedestrian crossings and maintenance vehicles like tow trucks and road works vehicles also have flashing yellow lights.
correct, there is a set of rear facing red flashing lights fitted to most police cars to indicate that the car is stopped or to indicate caution such as bringing traffic to a halt in the event of say a motorway accident.
The exception is at airports where they have red lights instead of blue. Blue lights are used at airports to denote taxiways so emergency vehicles have red lights to avoid confusion.
@@MeFreeBee No they don't. I serve in the Met. I've been to polar park police station which is attached to heathrow airport. I've been on a tour of the armoury and held a stripped down Glock pistol there. I've seen their variety of ARV's (as polar park is a firearms base) and they ALL have blue lights, the difference is they are also fitted with an orange beacon to the roof just in front of the lightbar which they use when on the apron, traversing the runways or permiter of the airport.
The coloured squares on the sides of the vehicles are meaningful too. Police have yellow and blue, ambulances yellow and green, and fire are yellow and red.
And if you want to get VERY niche and nerdy there's even more colour categories! Yellow/Black - National Highways Traffic Officers: civilian safety officers who patrol the motorways. Yellow/Orange - Blood & Organ Emergency Transport charity. Red/Blue - Railway Network Response Orange/White - Mountain & Cave Rescue Yellow/Navy - Coastguard Rescue Personally I love how organised and categorised UK liveries are.
I have worked for the ambulance service for 25 years. I am currently a HART paramedic-Hazardous Area Response Team. We are paramedics that are trained in swift water rescue, confined space, working at height, we wear breathing apparatus, terrorist attacks and chemical/HAZMAT incidents.All our emergency vehicles have blue lights. If you see a green flashing light that is a vehicle with a doctor in it. The VW van that you saw are the same as our HART response vehicles, they are full of kit and not able to carry a patient. As long as you hear the sirens, just move out the way, regardless of what service it is. The cars you saw tend to be FRVs-fast response vehicles-they are sent to the most serious jobs to get there quicker than a standard ambulance.
The whole point of the blue lights is if you see a blue light coming in your rearview mirror you pull over, a blue light is an emergency vehicle that’s it. You move or obey what they want.
might want to check your drivers manual you are supposed to drive normally until it is safe to pull over. the reason is the driver in the emergency vehicle has to know what you will do next, this is the only reason you continue to drive normally until safe to pull over or follow the drivers directions.
It's also _supposedly_ illegal (but seldom enforced) for any vehicle not belonging to the emergency services to show blue lights (regardless of whether they're flashing)
In the UK, assistance vehicles such as roadside rescue and highway maintenance display flashing amber lights. Only emergency vehicles have flashing blue lights and they are very visible even during day time. Fires Services, Police and Healthcare Trusts can do their own purchasing, which is why you see a variety of manufacturers. Sadly, there are only a few British marques surviving, so most vehicles are foreign makes. I think some of the ones you didn’t recognise are Vauxhall ( a UK brand previously owned by General Motors. There is UK Ford, which seems to have fallen out of favour for some reason. Other makes used include Skoda (VW owned) Jaguar, a very few Audis as well as BMW, Volvo (often used in estate - ie station wagon form for armed response vehicles), Mercedes and VW. Fire engines (we don’t say fire trucks!) used to be Bedford but specialist firms like Angloco and Emergency One modify manufacturers vehicles to the requirements of the purchaser. Recently electric vehicles have begun to be used to “go green” or be environmentally more friendly than petrol (gasoline!) or diesel vehicles.
the beauty of it being the same siren for all services is that you don't need to know what service the vehicle is responding for, just that it's there and you need to make way.
Official Brit here (7:59) In the UK we have a bunch of charities that are called the Air Ambulance Charities. In trauma grade incidents like RTCs and open fractures the air ambulance is dispatched consisting of a pilot, Critical care doctor and advanced care paramedic. They have a wider range of drugs that they can give patients as well as being able to do some surgical interventions on the roadside. They are called the “Advanced Trauma Team” The car seen at 7:59 is London Air ambulance’s Rapid Response Vehicle (RRV) In the event it would take to long for the helicopter to arrive (due to location or takeoff/landing times) or if the conditions make it unsafe to deploy the helicopter, the RRV will be deployed instead as it consists of the same equipment as the helicopters. In short the Advanced Trauma teams are basically mobile ICU’s and often mean the difference between life and death. If they’re called out the situation is the most serious it can get. Hope this helps!
They've been sent to me and honestly without them, I wouldn't of survived the 47 minutes seizure, can't praise them highly enough and your explanation, perfection 😊
Also HEMS cannot operate a helicopter at night (because it's difficult to land), so they use the distinctive red vehicles to get around here in London.
@@Flat-White on the contrary at least one of east Anglia's air ambulance helicopters HAVE been fitted to fly in pitch darkness. Hopefully the others will follow suit
@@MiaPlaysPokemonOfficial I am thank you, I have treatment resistant epilepsy, sometimes I can dislocate one side, last time was left ankle, knee and shoulder, I wasn't expecting the air ambulance to come and give me pain killers, but I was so relieved they did. Touching the wooden door as I type, but haven't had a bad day in almost 3 months so it's currently going gloriously. You're comment was really sweet, so thank you again. Hope you are having the most amazing day.
When I first moved in to where I live now, I thought I'd moved to a really rough area with sirens going all the time. It took me about a month to realise that it was the parrot that lived next door.
The police used to use the Ford Cosworth Sierra for its high end engine,I think the company was sold not sure so don't quote me on the selling part..🏴👍👍👍👍
Me too.😊 We get out of the way whatever. Whether it's a paramadic rapid response car, a fire engine or a police dog unit, if the blue and twos are on🚨, then get out the way!
@@Dionysos640 Heavily subsidised and easier to pay for over a long period of time. The whole point is to have a surplus of cash ready to be used on more than just tax payers. We have visitors from other countries, those too ill to work, homeless and many other types of people who just can't afford the NI. We all pay into it to ensure everyone can get treated no matter the circumstance. It's quality of life over who can afford it.
If you are the driver of a vehicle involved in a road traffic collision and you have to be transported by ambulance to an accident and emergency dept., you can be charged for the use of the ambulance because you will be insured or should be by law. You are expected to pay out of pocket and reclaim such a charge from your insurance company. This was actually the case when I worked in the NHS, my last 10 years working nights in A&E. It may have changed since I retired but I don't think it has. Having said that, unpaid ambulance bills are rarely, if ever, chased down. It is too expensive administratively to do so and, unfortunately, that lets insurance companies off the hook.
@@lindaevans8044 Nonsense! That statement supposes that calling an ambulance more than twice a year is somehow frivolous. The fact is that repeated call outs are almost always for someone with a chronic life threatening illness who is in crisis. There will be no third party like an insurance company to bear the cost in the scenario and anyone with such a chronic life threatening condition would be at risk of premature death if they are financially poor and are deterred from calling an ambulance when their life is at risk. I say this as someone who spent his working life in healthcare, 12 years in the Royal Navy and the rest in the NHS working in accident and emergency departments. There are some idiots who make unnecessary calls for ambulances but what are we supposed to do, tax stupidity?
The advance Trauma Team consists of emergency Doctors, Consultants and medicine, intensive care, surgery, nursing, health and support staff, who work together as a team to assess and manage the trauma patient. These people can perform surgeries at the roadside and the Doctor will take charge of the entire trauma deciding how patients will be transported to hospital i.e. road or air.
Each emergency vehicle has its own colour, police, yellow and blue, ambulance , yellow and green, the ambulance cars are first responders, they get there quicker, fire engines yellow and red. Blue lights show better at night so they don’t have to use the siren (disturbing the peace ) and the sirens are designed to give a directional indication of where they are approaching from, hence sounding the same. Hope this helps?
I've been driving for 35yrs and have always either got out of the way or given way to emergency vehicles. Last year I needed the hospital in an emergency. The ambulance drove like a race car while I was strapped down to a bed and my wife was clinging on for her life. I was so glad other people did what I've always done.
Red lights are everywhere, so would not be particularly noticeable. Blue lights are reserved for emergency vehicles so you see a hint of flashing blue you know what's coming. In addition most UK emergency vehicles are fitted with directional multi-tone sirens which can help to pinpoint their location.
You can hear a burst of white noise in some types of sirens, which makes it even easier to pick out in a built-up area where there can be lots of echoes. Blue light penetrates rain and mist better than does red light.
@@martinwebb1681 Green light affords them no exemptions to the road traffic act, they cannot exceed the speed limit, contravene a keep left bollard or treat a red light as a give way, a green light is nothing more than a courtesy light. On rare ocassions you might see a vehicle with a Green and Blue light, in which case the blue light supercedes the green one and means the relevant exemptions apply as mentioned above.
@@RichWoods23 Actually Roadcraft states that the change of tone in a siren is what gets most people's attention. In my 7 years of policing that is my experience too. Changing the siren and the audible change in tone is when people suddenly notice you.
My adult son who has epilepsy had a seizure in the middle of a pedestrianised shopping street in Manchester and badly damaged his face as he hit the pavement. First thing to mention was how wonderful the passers-by were. They immediately organised themselves into a little team with one person getting water, one getting cloths, one phoning for an ambulance, others picking up his stuff that had flown everywhere etc. They were all amazing. But the first responder who arrived came on a bike!! He apparently patrols the centre giving first aid. He managed to stop the bleeding and patched him up until the actual ambulance arrived. Can't remember what colour his bike was - and he didn't have a siren!
The paramedics on bikes in Manchester would often shelter from the rain in the entrance lobby of the building where I worked We often used to see them whizzing about in the city centre So glad they were able to assist your son
Is it an English thing, a Manchester thing or a northern thing? My friend tripped and fell outside a corner shop in Manchester and split his forehead. The people in the shop both shoppers and staff came out to help him and somebody in a house opposite who'd seen him came rushing out too. Like you said within minutes they were all working as a team. Lovely people.
Red lights are illegal to display on the front of the vehicle in the uk, it doesn’t matter who you are, but red lights to the front are a NO GO because red indicates the back of a vehicle so you can easily tell which direction it is travelling. Emergency vehicles have red rear flashing lights for when they arrive on scene or for creating a rolling road block as red signifies STOP to the vehicles behind.
Hello ladies, I'm a former LAS (London Ambulance Service) Paramedic. We have a charity called London Air Ambulance which operates from Europes highest helipad at Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel. During daylight hours the helicopter delivers a trauma doctor and paramedic to the most seriously injured people but during nightime they cannot land as visibility is obviously a problem. During nightime the same doctor and paramedic still deliver the same level of care to trauma victims but in a car.
The sirens change. It was found that people were aware of the siren but sometimes failed to react, but if you changed the tone, say as you approached a junction, it was the actual change that really grabbed attention and folks would look up and react. So sirens change depending on circumstances. Its a useful tool.
In this video, you only really heard the wailing siren. You noticed that all emergency services use the same set of sirens (for the most part) and even though you heard mainly the wailing sound, there are more. All our emergency services use the same sirens because for us it is more important to know where and how far away the vehicle is than it is to know what kind of emergency it is. Also, a lot of research has been done into sirens and it makes sense to apply that to all services. It's fascinating to understand why UK emergency services use different siren sounds. Each type of siren, like the "Wail," "Yelp," "Hi-Lo," and "Piercer," serves a specific purpose. Variation in siren sounds helps capture attention more effectively, especially in urban environments where echoes can confuse direction. Different frequencies penetrate various ambient noises better, ensuring that sirens are heard clearly in diverse settings. This approach also helps reduce auditory fatigue and maintains the impact of the sirens over longer distances and times. Additionally, the situational use of different sirens, such as using the "Piercer" in heavy traffic or alternating sounds for high-urgency situations, enhances response efficiency. Local regulations standardise these practices to ensure uniformity in emergency protocols. On a psychological level, the immediate recognition of varying siren patterns triggers quicker reactions from the public. Advances in siren technology, including digital controls and directional sound, further improve their effectiveness. Overall, the strategic use of different siren sounds by UK emergency services is crucial for optimising their response capabilities and ensuring public safety.
"Advanced Trauma" ambulances and the teams that man them, are usually vehicles that can respond to an emergency more quickly than a normal, large ambulance can. Whereas regular ambulances are designed to carry patients to hospital (if necessary,) the Advanced Trauma Team vehicles are utilised to quickly get to the patient, assess their condition accurately, and to resuscitate them (if necessary) as soon as possible. The team will then stabilise the patient, before the regular ambulance arrives to transport the patient to hospital.
They have a similar role in Hong Kong, advanced care paramedics racing around on motorbikes dodging and weaving through traffic to get to a patient before the meat wagon.
My husband had fell down the stairs, smashed his head, the emergency ambulance can really quick the paramedics called for help because of the head trauma which arrived within minutes. hubby also had a punctured lung and two broken ribs. I got to ride in the front of the ambulance with the driver with the sirens on.! Was a special experience to see how skilled the driver was and how vehicles in front moved to the left.
All paramedics can do resuscitation. The advance trauma team personnel are trained and qualified to administer specific life saving drugs and sometimes carry specialised doctors on board. They can also reduce open fractures where necessary which is vital to preventing infections getting into the wound with the subsequent dire consequences prior to travelling to the appropriate hospital
@@rowleyparks Learned a bit about traumatology recently watching interviews with Dr Gary Hartstein who was the F1 Meidical Officer comparing the levels of care that Indycar have. The first responders involve specialised trauma doctors, paramedics and firefighters in Indycar where as in F1 it's a legal battle involving local authorities and the medical crew are just there to oversee and make sure the series gets sued.
My father was a fireman in the UK. He was hit by a car as he stepped off of the fire truck and was seriously injured. Following the accident all fire engines in the UK had fluorescent reflective strips fitted to them
I work for the London Ambulance Service as an assistant practitioner (I basically assist the paramedics to do the job) and there’s a lot of interesting things about our vehicles. So there are 3 settings to the sirens, for standard police vehicles and ambulances. The first is called the wailers, the longer up and down type one. The next is the yelps, the shorter one. The last one the a faster, super short sound that is super loud. We are trained to switch between the 3 (mainly just the first 2) depending on what is happening on the road. The change of sound is what makes people recognise you’re there. There’s also the air horn which is the big honk sound you recognised which is used to really get people’s attention. Our sirens don’t go nee naw anymore 😢 Most of the LAS trucks are Mercedes but are being changed to Ford slowly. The cars are also mainly Mercedes but also Mustangs now. The cars (called first response units or FRU in LAS) are staffed by 1 paramedic and they are used to get to emergencies faster, they are normally followed by a truck (a DCA, double crewed ambulance) with 2 clinicians on it later. The advanced trauma team (HEMS, helicopter emergency medics) is a paramedic and a doctor who come out to major trauma cases e.g. cardiac arrests, big bleeds etc. They are the same teams that go on the helicopters during the day, the cars operate at night. In London we also have paramedics on bicycles (CRU) and motorbikes (MRU) that mainly operate in the city centre. They can get to emergencies a lot quicker through the congestion often a lot quicker than the cars or trucks. We also have specific mental health cars (not very many), maternity cars, bariatric (especially obese people) trucks with different equipment on, non-emergency transport vehicles (NETS) that don’t use the lights or sirens, hazardous area teams (HART) for emergencies at height or involving water etc, tactical response cars (TRU) that are paramedics trained to assist police in firearms situations (kind of like swat but medics) and a whole ton of specialised vehicles that are used in major events like those with multiple casualties. It’s kinda nuts how many different vehicles and units we have! We have whole teams called make ready who stock, clean and fix most problems with the vehicles. Sorry for the super long comment! Hope it was helpful ❤
The bright yellow on all emergency vehicles is a European standard (European Emergency Yellow) because it's super visible and not used for anything else. Our sirens are optimised to be very audible but also they change because it helps other road users focus and locate the vehicle.
Not everyone has to have the European standard though.. Scotland still often has white but keep the battenburg pattern, which looks better IMO.. cleaner 🙂
The local Care company that uses Vw's for their staff to visit the elderly in their homes has cars that hi viz yellow colour with their emblems on. It's only the base colour of the Battenburg used with another colour representing the emergency service it belongs to.
We call it ‘the blues and twos’ - blue lights and two tones. It doesn’t matter what’s coming you just have to get out of the way as soon as - some roads are really small. We have medical rapid response vehicles like that trauma car that are sent ahead of a main ambulance and have higher trained response people. Also our alarms are directional - you’ll hear it far far louder as it comes up to you so as a driver you know it’s coming at u rather than away from u. We have multiple differing emergency vehicles for a variety of responses. Police dog cars, police transport vans for putting arrested people in when there’s groups of them. Our ambulance service is also a separate entity to the fire service unlike the US. The hatchback rapid response vehicles like that Welsh on with the dragon tail on carry a huge amount of special kit in them.
On january 31st, what I thought was a very bad migraine turned out to be something a tad worse, an ambulance was called which turned up in 10 minutes, it took 30mins to get to the local gerneral hospital, where I had a CT scan confirmed I had a small bleed on my brain. This hospital in Barnet, north London did not have the facilities to deal with my medical pridicament, so I was transferred by ambulance under blues and twos (lights and sirens) from Barnet to UCLH in central London, the best hospital in the country for nuerological conditions, so by the time the bleed (a sub arachnoid haemorrhage) became so serious that I was unresponsive, I had an emergency proceedure carried to relieve the pressure that had built up in my noggin due to the bleed. 16 days later after 4 more CT scans, 2 angiograms, 1 MRI scan, 1 24 hour ECG, an EEG and a shed load of tablets I was discharged. 4 months later I'm in better health than I'm in the best health than I've been in the last 10 years, I'm a grumpy old 66 year old burke. All that cost me nothing and should I have another episode it would still cost me nothing. I wonder what my medical bills would be if I was an american?
Have had something similar, and I kept thanking God I wasn't American! Yes I'd paid for it through my taxes all my working life, but it was there when I needed it, no having to pay upfront then wrangling with insurance companies afterwards about what was included and what was not.
@@Badgersj I felt like a fraud in the ward I was in as everyone else were in much more severe conditions than I was, apart from face planting a couple of times, due to low blood pressure, a full bladder and bunged up alimentery canal for 9 days ( Man, those supositories turned you from bunged up to rocket powered in minutes!) I came out of it remarkably unscathed. The only sign of any brain damage is the fact that I started using emojies, where as before I always said, if you see me using emojies, you have my permission to shoot me!
On your way down to UCLH you undoubtedly went past my flat in Whetstone as the A1000 appears to be the main drag for emergency vehicles to/from Barnet hospital. Glad to hear that you are one of the people are being saved by the regular blues and twos going past my windows.
The whole UK emergency teams use many different vehicles. You'll see Vauxhall, BMW, Audi, Mercedes Benz, Skoda, VW, Volvo, Ford, Tesla, Toyotas. They use a multitude of vehicles.
The reason we have ambulance "cars" is for certain smaller triage and initial assessment. If it requires an ambulance van, one will follow. Eg..an old lady feeling unwell. she can be assisted by someone from a car. If she needs to go to hospital an actual ambulance can follow. Obviously in the case of illness or trauma, that is suspected hospital treatment will definitely be required...an ambulance will just go.
I am a retired Metropolitan Police (London) copper and drove cars, vans and motorcycles in emergency response and pursuit roles. We could switch the "tones" between Yelp, Wail, and Hi-Lo. I drove/rode liveried Rovers, Fords, Vauxhalls, Hondas and BMWs on duty during my service. I think the marques Natasha is struggling to ID are Vauxhall (UK GM brand) and Skoda (VW Group subsidiary)... Both very common Emergency vehicles here. The differences in livery and sound across the country are huge, each county wants to be individual, but it is only a blue light for an emergency vehicle. Red flashing lights are not featured in the UK Highway Code and not used by First Responders.
Just an addition to a comment above two of the cars were Vauxhalls one was a Vauxhall Astra (Buick Verano in America how ever you guys only got it as a sedan) the other one that you said went by too fast was a Vauxhall insignia (Buick regal in America) and the vehicles do have red lights however when responding to jobs they only use blue (emergency services eg ambulance fire police (doctors cars have green flashing lights as well) when they have arrived on scene then they activate the red flashing lights on the rear of the vehicles as well as the blue ones
Again, not quite true. Advanced trauma teams will carry doctors, often consultants, along with nurses and advanced trained paramedics who respond as a whole team to the more critical incidents. (I'm a nurse).
You are supposed to move out of the way of emergency vehicles when safe to do so. Pulling over isn't always possible or best choice. For example today I was in the outside lane, ambulance coming up the inside lane which was, however blocked further up so instead of pulling over to the inside lane I stopped and left a good gap which the ambulance could use to move to the outside lane without slowing. It also kept the cars behind me out of their way and being in the outside lane meant they could go into the opposite carriageway to get through the red lights further up. (Any vehicles queued up in front of them at the lights would not legally be allowed to go through them even to allow them past - even crossing the Advanced Stop Line would be an offence and people have been prosecuted and convicted for it. The theory is that as an ordinary motorist you should just sit tight and let the trained emergency service vehicle drivers figure it out and rmtake advantage of their highly-visible vehicles. But obviously if you can move over enough to let them through you do it.
I believe the US is one of a minority of countries that have red lights. In the UK it doesn’t matter what the emergency vehicle is, you hear the siren and get out of the way. Those police cars are not the regular vehicles people drive, they have altered engines and could keep up with and overtake the US equivalents. Great video ladies. Thx for sharing. 😊
@@bordersw1239 never buy an ex police or ambulance . I got an ex emergency doctors car from Scotland it was 5 years old it still had the strobe lights in the grills . I had it one year it spent 9 months of the road with gear box and drive shaft repairs I bought it for £9000 sold it a year later for£2000
The decals are what’s known as high-conspicuity markings, more commonly known as Battenberg markings (after the checkered cake). They’re used to enhance visibility, and are used in different colours for different services. Blue and yellow for police, red and yellow for fire, green and yellow for ambulance, orange and blue for road maintenance and so on.
Advanced trauma teams are basically highly trained to carry out life saving care at the accident scene and keep that person from death until they can be ambulanced or air lifted to hospital - they perform operations, amputations, give IV medication and can sedate people, and because they travel by car instead of the vans etc, they get there sooner, which increases the patients chance of survival hugely.
I use rear reds (Police - the Met) when stopped at the side of the road causing a slight obstruction or to warn approaching drivers (from behind) of an obstruction. On a traffic stop I would just utilise rear blues and turn the front ones off to stop blinding oncoming traffic and also not to dazzle the person you have stopped.
To answer a multitude of your questions: The emergency vehicles don't have red so that they can easily be distinquished from the red tail lights of cars traveling in the opposite direction The colour patterns generally denote the response - Red/Yellow is Fire, Yellow/Green is Medical & Yellow/Blue is Police 5:00 - Is an Ambulance Support Vehicle usually carrying specialist kit which can be requested to an incident 6:03 - This Police car is a Vauxhall 6:23 - This Mitsubishi pickup is part of the 'Commercial Vehicle Unit' and assists in incidents involving Lorries & Trucks 6:40 - The Advanced Trauma Team and Red car colour denote this vehicle as carrying Paramedics from The London Air Ambulance (The car is a Skoda) The car is used when it is deemed unsafe or faster than to fly the helicopter (This is why it has 'Support London's Air Ambulance' on the side) 8:40 - Metropolitan Police refers to the Police in London all other locations the police forces state their region 10:29 - You are instructed to pull over for Emegency Vehicles 'when it is safe to do so' 11:27 - Another Vauxhall Police car 13:59 - A Police custody van, used to take criminals to the police station or can provide extra police officers to an incident 14:58 - SUV for The Wales Air Ambulance (which again has the red colour vehicle)
Emergency vehicles do have red lights. Every police vehicle i've ever driven and been in (even the unmarked car) has rear red lights... they just aren't used that commonly.
@@thefiestaguy8831 True enough! If the car is stopped on the hard shoulder, you will always see flashing blue and red. Or if it's in the main carriageway you know to REALLY slow down!
You are not allowed to pull over, even for an emergency vehicle, into a bus lane. Even though the emergency vehicle should not also be using the bus lane, if it is on response it is highly doubtful whether it will be fined. It makes perfect sense for emergency vehicles to use the bus lanes so I don't know why it is not allowed.
Nice one ladies. Assorted answers and trivia: 1. The "ambulance cars" are paramedics. The idea is they trade the ability to carry a patient for the ability to get there faster (you can see what the traffic's like). Frankly, they're also cheaper than a fully-equipped ambulance, so you get more units for a given budget. Advanced Trauma Teams are similar to paramedics, but have a full doctor on-board who can do more. 2. Car brands: 7:13 ATT : Skoda (long-standing Czech company, now owned by Volkswagen). 11:27 Police : Vauxhall. Originally a British company, Vauxhall and Opel in Germany were taken over by General Motors in the 1960s(?). For years they produced identical cars, just "badge-engineered" as one or the other brand. 3. The police vans are mostly for a) transporting special units, b) transporting large numbers of regular officers and c) transporting large numbers of arrestees when there are too many to fit in a Police car. British Police generally avoid carrying arrestees in the back of a regular car as much as possible. The prisoner transport vans used to be black and were nicknamed "Black Morias". 4. The red/yellow reflective stripes on the back of vehicles are there to stop other cars from running into the back of them when they're stopped by the side of the road. 5. Blue lights and two-tone sirens are genrally known as "blues-and-twos", so you might say all the vehicles in the vid "have got their blues-and-twos on." 6. Until the blue-and-yellow livery (nicknamed "Battenburg" after the cake) became universal, police had white cars with thin, orangy-red stripes down the side that were nicknamed "jam butties" (jam sandwiches). Sometimes they had the word POLICE written in mirror-writing on the front so that drivers could read it when they saw it in their rear view mirrors. This lead to them (and traffic police generally) being nicknamed "ECILOPs" (pronounced "ecky-lopps"). 7. Before Jam Butties, many police cars used to be black-and-white and they were nicknamed "panda cars" (black was later mostly replaced by blue, but the name stuck). Because custom paint jobs were expensive, local police forces sometimes used to do deals with each other: one force would buy standard black cars and the force next door would buy standard white ones. Then their mechanics would swap the doors, bonnets ("hoods") and boot lids ("trunks") over, so one force had black cars with white bits and the other had white cars with black bits. 8. Before they were cut back into near-oblivion, police motorcyclists used to teach advanced riding, from their training manuals, to anyone who paid for a course. They couldn't tell you to break the speed limit of course, so carving through traffic and "getting there promptly" were covered by the euphemism "making progress". Bikers still say things like, "I was 'making progress' ('officer')" when they don't want to openly admit to speeding.
This is such a geeky TH-cam video and I love it. First time I've seen your channel and I love your observations. I'm in the UK and I've always been fascinated during my childhood that you use red on your emergency services lights in the US. I'm sure you know now about the blue laterns outside our police stations (station houses) in the UK. That might explain the blue lights only.
The brand you didn’t know was Vauxhall (the first was an Insignia (badged as a Buick Regal in North America) , the second an Astra. The red Trauma team was a Škoda Octavia). Police use cars and vans interchangeably.
As an ex UK Police Officer, watching this brings back the great memories…and PTSD, at the same time! 🫣😄 We used BMW’s as area cars, and Fords as panda cars.. Our traffic department used Rovers, the fastback models, and Volvo T5’s.. I did a traffic attachment, and boy did those Volvo’s fly! Typically a set of front brake rotors would be toast in a matter of a couple of weeks.. Much missed days Be safe ladies 🙏🏽🇬🇧🇺🇸
Met or elsewhere? I'm serving in the Met today... 7 years in. BMW's are mostly replaced by Volvo V90's. Fords are rare apart from the station vans, whilst we still have some and i've driven them, they are used by any driver not just basic (A to B). We had a 66 plate 1 litre ecoboost one a few years back, wasn't that fast you'd think but actually it was quite nippy, problem is it overheated very easily and I recall being on a blue light run around 5 years ago, going up a hill when suddenly the car came up with "speed limited due to engine overheat"... the car wouldn't exceed 20mph. Sirens wailing and lights flashing in response to an immediate call and we were struggling to get up a hill doing 20mph... Traffic now mostly use V90's like our area car response team advanced driver does. Firearms now use XC90's although there are still some BMW X5's floating around, even some on newer 22/23 plates. BMW pulled out of the authorities market last year I believe it was.
Fire vehicles have RED and yellow chequers, police BLUE and yellow and ambulances GREEN and yellow. The types of vehicles vary from area to area. That van ambulance is not typical we normally use the “box” type of vehicles for ambulances. Police used to use a lot of BMWs but have stopped because they kept catching fire. The advance trauma team is in a Skoda. They are in cars to get to serious incidents more quickly.
The van would be unlikely to be used for moving patients but could be being used to transport drugs or equipment to an accident or for blood or organ transport. Cars and bikes will also be used by first responders as they can get through heavy traffic faster, cars also may be used by support teams in which case they would follow the more visible conventional ambulance.
The vehicles are a method to transport the bravest, kindest people who put themselves before others............If you are in any kind of trouble they are the first ones you call for..............Brilliant people and very much appreciated by me :-)
Hey, UK paramedic here! We use blue, as you said, because it’s far more visible at distance and at night… AND I red is the colour of stop signals and brake lights, so we use rear reds when stopped on scene only. Also the first ‘ambulance’ you saw (from wales) is an incident support vehicle carrying kit or crew only, but not treating patients. The ‘trauma team’ car you saw is privately operated by a helimed provider for assistance in extreme trauma emergency and often (but not always) operated by a charity or private provider.
Hi. Only Blue of white light can face forwards on vehicles in the UK hence you don't see the red lights. But when the Vehicle is stationary at the incident you will see red light facing backward on the roof bar. The only emergency vehicle that are primarily red are fire service vehicles.
Not necessarily so. The different siren tones are changed by pressing the vehicle's horn button, a double 'beep' switches it off when it's not needed, such as when waiting for a jam to clear, and a continuous press (on some vehicles) gives you the air horn.
@@jamiea9718 Around here the ambulance and fire engine drivers will often give a quick toot-toot on the bull horn when you pull over in good time to let them pass.
I had to be rushed to hospital by ambulance because of a heart attack. While I was being treated in the back of the ambulance, the siren was so loud. It was frightening me, so I asked if it could be turned off, but the paramedics told me they had to use it. When I asked, "I'm not going to die, am I?" one of the paramedics told me, "We're nearly there sweetie." Happy to tell you I didn't die. 🙂God bless our NHS.
As a UK police officer you get used to the siren. I've sat in the back of enough ambulances riding to hospital with them blaring, and been on enough blue light runs it just becomes the "norm". Some people get an adrenaline rush or "excited"... I recall last year myself and a colleague in the same vehicle were blue lighting it to a female that had been run over by a van. I knew the area very well and was directing him without using maps or a phone. We were literally discussing what we had done on our days off previously and what we had planned for the upcoming rest days whilst en-route. A lot of the time the driving and the siren become "second nature" and it's just something you hear.
@thefiestaguy8831: my father was an old fashioned Bobby, 1951 - '73: when he started they didn't have sirens ... they had bells, and whistles; Police Boxes, Phone Pillars, and Sergeant's on push bikes cycling around to check the beats LOL 😆
My Dad was a Police Officer from 1989-2020 so, naturally, I've seen a lot of emergency vehicles in my time. His favourite police car was the Sierra Cosworth, in which he once did a 15.5 mile journey in 6 mins! He ended his career in the rurals where the police also use quad bikes and ATV's. He's got some stories to tell for sure!
I serve in the Met but I would have some doubt behind what you were told... 15.5 miles in 6 minutes means travelling at 154.8 miles per hour constantly (as an average) for 6 minutes... whilst this is possible it must have been a motorway journey to be even remotely true. The standard police response driver training course where I serve has you driving at high speed on the motorway with no flashing lights or siren, but even then you typically only get to 130-145. Bearing in mind most cars are limited to 155mph 30mph is 1 mile every 2 minutes. 60mph is 1 mile per minute 120mph is 2 miles per minute 180mph is 3 miles per minute. The fastest I have ever known someone to drive was in a pursuit.... the officer was doing 160mph pursuing a stolen vehicle failing to stop. Even then the speed kept going from 160 down to around 100 and back to 160 when traffic ahead held them up (motorway pursuit).
@@thefiestaguy8831 Most cars are not limited to 250kph(155mph), those that are are mostly German to comply with their manufacturer's voluntary limit. Most cars simply can't achieve that speed and many, particularly sports cars, exceed it. My 500E is geared down to 250kph but with the long axle can achieve 170+mph. It is not unusual to see cars on the German Autobahns exceed the voluntary limit as its very easy to modify these cars. It is fortunate that in UK that mostly conditions don't allow speeds much over 100-120mph due to the crowding of our motorways
Fun little fact, emergency vehicles use more colours than just blue lights. Police, fire and ambulance all used blue and white lights primarily, and red lights on the rear for when theyre on a scene. Other emergency services use different lights too, Private ambulances, HEMS Trauma Teams, and on call doctors, community responders also use Green lights. Nowadays in the county I'm in we have Skoda, Volvo, Vauxhall and BMW police cars and they all serve specific roles. BMW and Volvos are normally used for Traffic Policing, and the Skoda's as what what we call 'area cars' and Vauxhalls are used by Police community support officers. Our undercover cars are also incredibly smart haha.
I hadone those I think it was from the Scottish area by the registration number it still had the strobe lights fitted . The transmission and 4 wheel drive unit broke down every month . It spent 9months of the year being repaired
Back in the 1950's and 60's London had bad fog. In an experiment it was discovered Blue lights were visible far more and from further away than any other light colour. So Emergency vehicles got blue lights. They reflect off things really well, as can be seen @ 8 mins in, when the Trauma team's Skoda circuits Traflgar Square London. Look at the pedestrians hair light up .
Often if you're on a motorbike (helmet) or in a van, you'll see the blue lights reflecting off your surroundings (cars, buildings). Helpful when you can't see them directly, or even hear them in a helmet. Traffic police generally have more/bigger lights on their cars.
Always been blue lights in the UK. We sometimes refer to them as blues and twos, as in blue lights and 2 tone siren. We are supposed to pull over if there’s an emergency vehicle, providing it’s safe to do so.
Yellow and Green is ambulance where I am... in London. I serve in the met and most of our fleet are Yellow and Blue chequered, some are still using the old "Jam sandwich" style livery but those cars are mostly gone.
All Uk ambulances are laied-out in the same way. Doesn't matter if you're in a Ford, Merc or VW, each drawer contains the same kit. We built an ambulance boat for our Channel Islands, the interior is exactly the same as the vans.
Not many people know this, but the sirens although sound the same each service has a slight pitch change in sirens so the emergency services can tell which emergency vehicle is coming.
I - sorry if I repeat things said before - In the UK an emergency vehicle on a shout is said to be going ‘Blues and Twos’ for the lights and the old two tone siren, which you heard from the white ambulance. Sirens are only used if the road ahead is blocked, unlike the Philadelphia fire department I had the misfortune to overlook from a hotel room once, who used full sirens every time they went out in the middle of the night, no matter how deserted the road was! Generally, our emergency vehicles can call several different sirens, the common wail and woo-woo, the old nee-nar, the loud horn and a white noise siren. The chequered marking is called Battenburg (named after the cake of the same name) developed in the UK in the 1990s and now used in many other countries, including Canada. As well as the three main colours already mentioned, on the motorways you see black and yellow = Highways Agency and on the coast you also see Navy Blue and Yellow = Coast guard; there are others as well, all with their own colour pattern.
Do they still use the white noise siren? I remember when that was coming in and the bursts of white noise would intersperse with the siren sound, I *think* I remember was because it helped people position the source better? Something like that?
Our emergency vehicles are only supposed to use sirens after 7am and before 11.30pm. (Same as for all car horns.) but in practice they will use them if they deem it safer. But, is there any truth in the rumour that blues and twos means "I want to get back to the station for a cuppa"?
In the UK red lights are not permitted on the front of any vehicle. It's blue strobes for police, fire, ambulance (plus some others) and green for emergency doctors (rarely used).
Have you noticed a lot of road side construction equipment now has flashing green lights on them (or at least they do here in Wales) I've wondered why that might be as like you I thought green meant doctor.
Brit here... Our sirens are designed to project sound in front of the emergency vehicle rather than just being LOUD. They also have 2 sound signatures because it has been discovered that by changing tone and tempo draws more attention to the vehicle than having a single tone. It's like roundabouts, they have been proven to be more efficient. Maybe it would be a good idea if the US adopted UK/European emergency sirens. By the way those Volvos and BMW sedans are V70s and series 5's with a top speed of well in excess of 150 mph. The trauma team vehicle is an NHS emergency trauma surgeon and nurse with a mobile field surgical kit in a car. Of course you need a single payer national health service to fund things like this, so it is unlikely you will be seeing them in the US any time soon.
The European siren on emergency vehicles has been scientifically proven to be better than American sirens. It covers twice the distance range of the American siren.
I got to visit my local air ambulance this month. Amazing opportunity after winning their super draw raffle 😊 The stuff they have is amazing and to view everything they have and the equipment was so fun. Especially the big practice helicopter for training that was donated to them by a family ❤ This was the ONLY circumstance I would like to meet them. They do amazing work, especially since they are charities 🚁
I have to say, I was *bloody* glad to see them when they were needed! In my case it was the RAF rescue team, responding to a friend, with a winch-and-stretcher air lift to the local hospital, followed by a 7-hour trip in the road ambulance, immobilised, to the trauma hospital and 10-hour rebuild op. All free at point of need. Oh, and can I mention (having just watched "what the British did for us" that the lifeboat was invented in Sunderland, England? and also free despite not being government funded in the same way.
@@GlimpseMaster how did I forget the lifeboat! 🤦🏻♀️ Growing up my Dad was a fisherman and had to be rescued a couple of times. I think living my whole life on the coast I forget about them. Local don’t tend to use them here as much as the tourists we are bombarded by on the Kent coast in the summer. Sadly not everyone is taught well to swim in school. In our town all our schools make sure we can swim and at an early age because of the dangers of the water on our door step. Rip tides etc are knowledge we grew up with but not everyone learns this in school. I have never encountered mountain rescue either, I suppose that’s another emergency service you don’t think about. And alongside the RNLI we have the coastguard too.
I think UK vehicle lighting regulations prohibit front-facing red lights on a moving vehicle, and red lights on the roof light bar only illuminate (to the rear) when the vehicle is static at an incident. Lighting regulations are so strict that white rear number plates are not permitted due to 'white-light' reflection at the vehicle following you. Someone else may be able to clarify this.
yep.if you see red lights we are trained to stop.a car braking, red stop lights.so a car coming towards you on a dual carriage way"2 way street"with red lights showing on front could cause hell of a lot of accidents due to sudden braking.so yes.no red lights allowed where visible to on coming traffic.same with white lights at the rear.you may think the car in front is coming towards you when in reality you are just getting closer to it.
Correct. I serve in the Met. Red lights is applicable to rear facing only. Most police vehicles including every one i've ever driven (even unmarked) have some form of red lights, whether overt or covert.
The colour coding of the vehicles is simple, too: yellow with blue rectangles - police; yellow with green rectangles - ambulance and first responders ("trauma team"); yellow with red rectangles - fire services. Yellow with black rectangles is the non-emergency traffic officers - no blue lights, but authority to direct or intervene with traffic.
Blue is the predominant colour for emergency vehicles in the UK and Europe. Blue is easy to see from a distance, especially in the dark. Amber is traditionally associated with danger, and is therefore used as warning lights on vehicles and also on the roadside.
America absolutely wins in this. I love the custom Ford Explorers you have 😍, and who can forget the absolute classic that is the Crown Victoria. And those Firetrucks - absolute works of art - world famous - and treat and maintained with total respect for the job they do. 👏👏
Watch an old British movie, and the police, fire and ambulance vehicles all had BELLS not sirens. I remember them well, especially the fire engines, where a member of the crew would be manually ringing the bell.
The electrically operated bells on the front bumper of Wolseley police cars (1950s) were called Winkworth Gongs. That's the "You learn something every day" item for today! 🙂
The red air ambulance is a Skoda and they are for major incidents where the actual helicopter air ambulance can’t reach. Also there are red lights on the back of police car light bars which means stay back.
The Trauma Team is usually a Advanced Paramedic and a Doctor. The "battenburg" square colours on the side make it easy to identify emergency services. Blue & Yellow are Police, Red & Yellow are Fire Service, Yellow & Green are Ambulance. We also have Orange & White/Yellow for Mountain Rescue. There is also Yellow & Brown which is Highway Service (non-emergency).
Th 'Advance Trauma Team' is part of the ambulance service, and is exactly what it says - it carries practioners (paramedics and doctors) with specific trauma skills to the scene of an incident where a patient potentially needs a lot of in situ treatment before they can be moved to the hospital. A regular ambulance would also be sent to the scene to assist the trauma team and then tranport the patient to hospital once stabilised. Ambulances for taking patients to hospital are the big boxy things. Other smaller ambulance service vehicles are for transporting paramedics and doctors to the patient. The Metropolitan Police is the the Police service covering London.
@TheNatashaDebbieShow it because it’s a small island that’s why the roads a bit smaller in some areas in around Great Britain or UK but a lot of people just know to move out the way if there able to in the moment
Unless you're being pulled over, of course! You kind of need to know that just moving over to allow them to pass is going to be a "failing to stop" offence!!
Some are " armed response units" so different paint jobs and usually armed with 9mm pistols and mp5 sub machine guns.but basically, u hear a siren, you see blue lights, you get the hell out of the way and let them pass. As always, a fun vid. Take care ladies!☺
Hi Natasha & Debbie, I've recently started following you on TH-cam. You cheer me up so much. As an official UK citizen and user of ambulance due to chronic health issues. The ambulances we have vary in size due to use. Smaller cars like Volvo's or Vauxhall's are usually rapid response vehicles and don't carry passengers. The sirens are pitched and spaced differently in fire engines, police and ambulance it's not easy to hear on recordings though.We only pull over if it is safe to do so. Roads are very narrow in a lot of areas.
There's a very unique unit in London called the SEG (Special Escort Group) which are an basically a special forces style elite police unit, they're armed, stop for no one and are extremely discreet, they rely mainly on bikes and don't use sirens instead opting for old fashioned whistles you have to blow through as everyone is immune to sirens in a city centre, but a whistle is still shocking, it's fascinating how they work using very minimal tactics and they make their route up as they go so are very flexible, there's an excellent TH-cam video about them called 'Inconspicuous Ingenuity - Escorted by the Met Police SEG'.
I think the first ambulance is more a support vehicle for additional or specialized unit which is why it's a van, rather than the usual larger ambulances for patients
At 4:05, the ambulance isn’t used for carrying patients. It’s for HART (Hazardous Area Response Team), they’re used to help people in anywhere that is hazardous. Any kind of car that says ambulance isn’t used to transport victims, they’re used to provide emergency medical care. Ambulances and paramedics provide care but if they don’t have the necessary drugs and/or training (for serious injuries), an advanced trauma team will be called. They’ll arrive via car or helicopter depending on how close they are and the area. Rapid Response Teams (all yellow cars that say ambulance) arrive BEFORE the ambulance to provide emergency care and to get to them before the ambulance can arrive due to them being slower! Another thing, our ambulances aren’t red because they aren’t owned by the fire service, the ambulance service is completely independent and therefore have a unique colour scheme. Hope this helped! Love the vids!
There is a colour system in the UK for the emergency services... as a previous post stated, if you see a blue light, then get out of the way.... but who are you getting out of the way of..?... All of our emergency vehicles have a checkered colour system. Blue and yellow is police, green and yellow is the ambulance service, and red and yellow is the fire service... a simple system really... (ohhh... and if you ever see a green flashing light on a car, it means it's a medical doctor on an emergency call). On a side note, I never knew I could be so fascinated watching things about my own country, that, because I live here, I take for granted. I love your videos!!... Keep 'em comin'..!
I once used that line on a new girl who'd started working with us. I asked her what her name was and she said 'Nina', to which I replied, "So, was your mum a fan of ambulances, then?" - the remark went totally over her head and she looked at me blankly. She apologised later when she'd asked someone else who was present, why they laughed and they explained the joke to her!
Yes, in the 80s my then toddler son called them neenaws, the sirens were very different back then. Who remembers the little yoghurt pot look blue lights on police cars that, themselves, mostly looked like the first cheap car you got when you were 18😂😂! That was back when dropping litter or being out in the street and looking under 16 were major crimes!
Good morning ladies. Great to have you back. As a Brit currently residing in Texas I can advise the major differences as follows. Like most of the rest of the world RED lights are only permissible on the rear of a vehicle. They are not permissible at the front. Most U.K. Emergency vehicles do have red flashing lights when stationary and responding to an incident but that is the only occasion when you’ll see them. As regards the difference in sounds. In the U.K. there are only two approved siren sounds on emergency vehicles. All are treated with equal importance so there is no differentiation between them. The term “give way (yield) to the blue” also refers to the lights and not the siren sounds. There are also laws regarding the decibel level of sirens so U.K. emergency vehicles will only use them when they absolutely have to unlike those in Texas who seem to enjoy the more noise they can make 😂 Finally regarding Debbie’s concerns about moving over on narrow roads. The emergency services in the U.K. are well aware of the issue and will allow for you to find more room to allow them past. As with everything between our two countries there’s no right or wrong method. Just differences.
We only have red lights at the rear of the light bar and they are predominately used once the emergency vehicles arrive on scene. The high visibility checkerd colours are - Blue/Yellow for Police, Green/Yellow for Ambulance and lastly Red/Yellow for Fire.
Amber: Used as warning lights on vehicles and on the roadside, amber lights are traditionally associated with danger. Amber flashing lights are often used to indicate slow-moving vehicles, such as those involved in road maintenance.
@@ianm42yt 112 has worked for many years now. I read somewhere that 911 only works on mobile phones but I just can't find out if that's true or not and don't really want to try it!!
So, some points I picked up watching that hopefully will help! Not sure if these have been mentioned but thought I'd put everything into 1 comment for you. Emergency Lights: All emergency lights in the UK are Blue! Red can be used when a vehicle is stationary/on scene but are only visible from the rear! Green lights are used on vehicles that are used only by Doctors Sirens: Sirens are very similar between each emergency service, however once you get used to them you are able to identify the difference between what type of vehicle is responding to you! Battenberg: This is what we call the design of the reflective vinyl you see on the sides of the car... Red/Yellow - Fire Green/Yellow - Ambulance Services Blue/Yellow - Police The few police cars that you were unsure of the brand are Vauxhall. The British variant to Opel branded vehicles. The white Ambulance van at the start that was Scottish, is most likely a Support Unit for the Ambulance Service, although I don't live in Scotland so not 100% sure on that one. Don't forget, most of our fire engines (not trucks) have tanks built into them. They carry water and don't always need to connect to a hydrant. Ambulances were dominantly Customised Mercedes Sprinter Vehicles but in some areas have changed to modified Fiat Ducato Vans I think. The Red Ambulance towards the beginning is a Skoda. It is part of our Air Ambulance teams (Which in the UK are Charities and not fully Government funded like Ambulances are! There road vehicles are Red in colour with the Green/Yellow vinyl design. These road vehicles are used by Advanced Paramedics/Trauma Doctors who are put through further training to handle more serious/life threatening situations! The Red Volvo at 15:32 is again, an Air Ambulance Charity so will most likely be Advanced Paramedics/Trauma Doctors. I'm not fully sure what the scenario is with London because the Met Police use any and all cars for their police cars, but for the most of the rest of the country, BMW/Volvo Estates as we call them (Stationwagons) are our Road Policing Teams, these are the people that handle anything Traffic Related. The BMW/Volvo SUVs are mostly used as ARVs (Armed Response Vehicles) because UK Police do not carry firearms as standard (Excl. Taser) In my area, the Volvo vehicles have start to change to Black paint under the Blue/Yellow instead of White, not sure about other parts of the country.
The square markings are known as 'Battenburg', after the cake. The police will show, at the rear, red and blue when stopped. We (UK) have many specialist emergency vehicles. Too many to list. The sirens have different sounds, the driver choses one to suit situation. A lot of our vehicles were not shown such as the fire platform truck.
The VW van that you noted is not an ambulance that will carry patients. The ambulance cars (station wagons) are paramedics who can get to a patient and provide emergency treatment before a larger ambulance attends. Not all call outs result in patients being taken to hospital.
I assume that this has been answered elsewhere in this video, but the advanced trauma team consists of at least one doctor. They are available at a moments notice, and will respond to any accident that they are called to. They are allowed to open people up on the street as part of the response if they believe that the person would not make it to an ER without their intervention. There is a series called Emergency Response (or something similar) that highlights their work. There was one episode where a female on a bicycle was hit, and the doctor arrived and did his assessment. He determined that she would not make it to the hospital because of her heart, so he opened her up in order to massage the heart in order to keep her alive. When the ambulance arrived, they loaded her and continued with the heart massage on the way to the hospital. This system does save lives because it reduces the time it takes to get help from a doctor/surgeon.
@@TheNatashaDebbieShowthere’s also a show about the HEART team who help in unusual areas ( 999 rescue squad )and ones that show the air ambulance and the coastguard and lifeboat charity as well you may find it interesting to watch them
There are a couple of reasons for using blue lights on emergency vehicles (as opposed to red, as in other countries) 1. Blue lights aren't used on any other vehicles, so a flashing blue light always means 'move out of the way' 2. Blue light is more visible than any other colour, and flashing lights always attract attention more than fixed lights, so your eye is drawn to it. UK emergency vehicle sirens are different in the UK, and often include short bursts of white noise (it sounds like radio static) White noise contains a lot of high-frequencies, and so is very easy to locate, which makes it obvious where the siren is coming from.
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We have NEVER seen any emergency response vehicle in the United Kingdom before! Volvo and BMW Police Cars? WHAT!? This was so cool to see and everything is so very different to the United States! Different sounds, different colors! We have loads of questions and would really appreciate your help in the comments section. UK has some very nice vehicles and we love learning and seeing things like this for the first time with you! Thanks to each of YOU for watching! If you enjoy our content, please consider subscribing to our channel, it is the BEST way to support our channel and it's FREE! Also, please click the Like button. Thank you for your support!
Well on our advanced trama team is our Volvo or Nissan or range rover estate cars
The red ambulance cars are usually have critical care paramedics and doctors on so if a ambulance crew go to a complex trauma job, they can ask for back up from the advanced trauma car or helmed
The blue lights come from the original vehicle lights law. The law stated that you may only show a white light to the front and only show a red light to the rear. When emergency response vehicle were given lights, blue did not break the law. Rotating or fixed red lights to the front would make the vehicle illegal to used on a public highway. Doctor first response cars have green lights, usually crewed with a doctor and a paramedic. You may notice that vehicle registration plates (you know them as license plates) are reflective white on the front and yellow on the back. You cannot have reflective white to the rear!
You should check out Police Interceptors it is a TV show in the UK where police go after criminals it is also not acting so it is real events
For a real insight into the UK watch Auditing Britain our national treasure and the responses he gets engaging with the authorities .You will learn a great deal about UK policing , public services and places of interest. that are not on the tourist maps. I am fascinated by your 1st amendment audits as the give such great insight into the American way and how the public utilities compare to our own.
My life was saved by an advance trauma team after a rather bad bike accident. They cut me open on the side of the road to keep me alive. I'm in tears every time I think of what they did for me. Their skills are beyond belief. I still ride a big bike thanks to Dave , Andy and Cathy.
They're highly skilled professionals these days. So glad you made it, Doug.
@@kernow9324 Thanks. They are quite literally my heroes , along with many others who put me back together.
Advanced trauma are trained doctors who can place people in coma’s and amputate people in the field. They ground part of our air ambulance service
@@Doug791 did they tell you what surgery they did?
A very lovely comment, glad you're still with us :).
Tail Lights - red. Brake Lights - red, Fog Lights - red, Traffic Light Stop - Red. Blue means emergency services only and get out of the way. Doesn’t matter which service it is.
Those were my immediate thoughts - thank you for confirming this.
Orange is used for general warnings, so that means turn signals, road works lighting, traffic lights (of course), pedestrian crossings and maintenance vehicles like tow trucks and road works vehicles also have flashing yellow lights.
@@tezinho81 Tractors, wide or unusual loads and escort vehicles often have yellow too.
The red car is a paramedic first responder and it is a Skoda Octavia I think
@@danielbland3882 I thought it was the trauma doctor? could be an advanced paramedic I guess
Red lights on a moving vehicle are often mistaken for brake lights, so they are never used on any moving emergency vehicle.
correct, there is a set of rear facing red flashing lights fitted to most police cars to indicate that the car is stopped or to indicate caution such as bringing traffic to a halt in the event of say a motorway accident.
The exception is at airports where they have red lights instead of blue. Blue lights are used at airports to denote taxiways so emergency vehicles have red lights to avoid confusion.
@@MeFreeBeeNot in the UK, emergency services use blue lights at airports and will have additional yellow beacons when operating airside.
@@MeFreeBee No they don't. I serve in the Met. I've been to polar park police station which is attached to heathrow airport. I've been on a tour of the armoury and held a stripped down Glock pistol there.
I've seen their variety of ARV's (as polar park is a firearms base) and they ALL have blue lights, the difference is they are also fitted with an orange beacon to the roof just in front of the lightbar which they use when on the apron, traversing the runways or permiter of the airport.
Incorrect.
I serve in the Met and believe me every car we have (even the unmarked car with covert lights) has rear reds.. and they do get used.
The coloured squares on the sides of the vehicles are meaningful too.
Police have yellow and blue, ambulances yellow and green, and fire are yellow and red.
the batternberg pattern
And if you want to get VERY niche and nerdy there's even more colour categories!
Yellow/Black - National Highways Traffic Officers: civilian safety officers who patrol the motorways.
Yellow/Orange - Blood & Organ Emergency Transport charity.
Red/Blue - Railway Network Response
Orange/White - Mountain & Cave Rescue
Yellow/Navy - Coastguard Rescue
Personally I love how organised and categorised UK liveries are.
@@GeorgeThoughts I agree, you know exactly what you're getting with them
I have worked for the ambulance service for 25 years. I am currently a HART paramedic-Hazardous Area Response Team. We are paramedics that are trained in swift water rescue, confined space, working at height, we wear breathing apparatus, terrorist attacks and chemical/HAZMAT incidents.All our emergency vehicles have blue lights. If you see a green flashing light that is a vehicle with a doctor in it. The VW van that you saw are the same as our HART response vehicles, they are full of kit and not able to carry a patient. As long as you hear the sirens, just move out the way, regardless of what service it is. The cars you saw tend to be FRVs-fast response vehicles-they are sent to the most serious jobs to get there quicker than a standard ambulance.
Thank you for your work
For everything you have done, and everyting that you do,
Heart felt thanks 💙
Thats just complicating matters with no need.
As a FRV worker I thank you for explaining such so adequately.
Thank you for your service
The whole point of the blue lights is if you see a blue light coming in your rearview mirror you pull over, a blue light is an emergency vehicle that’s it. You move or obey what they want.
might want to check your drivers manual you are supposed to drive normally until it is safe to pull over. the reason is the driver in the emergency vehicle has to know what you will do next, this is the only reason you continue to drive normally until safe to pull over or follow the drivers directions.
It's also _supposedly_ illegal (but seldom enforced) for any vehicle not belonging to the emergency services to show blue lights (regardless of whether they're flashing)
and if you will not cause more of an obstruction in doing so.
In the UK, assistance vehicles such as roadside rescue and highway maintenance display flashing amber lights. Only emergency vehicles have flashing blue lights and they are very visible even during day time.
Fires Services, Police and Healthcare Trusts can do their own purchasing, which is why you see a variety of manufacturers. Sadly, there are only a few British marques surviving, so most vehicles are foreign makes. I think some of the ones you didn’t recognise are Vauxhall ( a UK brand previously owned by General Motors. There is UK Ford, which seems to have fallen out of favour for some reason. Other makes used include Skoda (VW owned) Jaguar, a very few Audis as well as BMW, Volvo (often used in estate - ie station wagon form for armed response vehicles), Mercedes and VW. Fire engines (we don’t say fire trucks!) used to be Bedford but specialist firms like Angloco and Emergency One modify manufacturers vehicles to the requirements of the purchaser. Recently electric vehicles have begun to be used to “go green” or be environmentally more friendly than petrol (gasoline!) or diesel vehicles.
Move over if it's safe to do so.
the beauty of it being the same siren for all services is that you don't need to know what service the vehicle is responding for, just that it's there and you need to make way.
Official Brit here (7:59)
In the UK we have a bunch of charities that are called the Air Ambulance Charities.
In trauma grade incidents like RTCs and open fractures the air ambulance is dispatched consisting of a pilot, Critical care doctor and advanced care paramedic. They have a wider range of drugs that they can give patients as well as being able to do some surgical interventions on the roadside.
They are called the “Advanced Trauma Team”
The car seen at 7:59 is London Air ambulance’s Rapid Response Vehicle (RRV)
In the event it would take to long for the helicopter to arrive (due to location or takeoff/landing times) or if the conditions make it unsafe to deploy the helicopter, the RRV will be deployed instead as it consists of the same equipment as the helicopters.
In short the Advanced Trauma teams are basically mobile ICU’s and often mean the difference between life and death. If they’re called out the situation is the most serious it can get.
Hope this helps!
They've been sent to me and honestly without them, I wouldn't of survived the 47 minutes seizure, can't praise them highly enough and your explanation, perfection 😊
Also HEMS cannot operate a helicopter at night (because it's difficult to land), so they use the distinctive red vehicles to get around here in London.
@@Flat-White on the contrary at least one of east Anglia's air ambulance helicopters HAVE been fitted to fly in pitch darkness.
Hopefully the others will follow suit
@@krus3997 47!? I hope you're ok now! Glad they could hejp
@@MiaPlaysPokemonOfficial I am thank you, I have treatment resistant epilepsy, sometimes I can dislocate one side, last time was left ankle, knee and shoulder, I wasn't expecting the air ambulance to come and give me pain killers, but I was so relieved they did. Touching the wooden door as I type, but haven't had a bad day in almost 3 months so it's currently going gloriously. You're comment was really sweet, so thank you again. Hope you are having the most amazing day.
When I first moved in to where I live now, I thought I'd moved to a really rough area with sirens going all the time. It took me about a month to realise that it was the parrot that lived next door.
lucky it wasn't Lyre Bird. if you have no idea what they are. they can mimic any sound they hear even crying baby.
😂😂😂
That is hilarious!!😂😂
Starlings sometimes do it too.
@@jontuson2078 I used to have an African grey that imitated American police cars if they were on tv 😀
I had to chuckle when you said you wouldn't know what sort of emergency vehicle was behind you, why would that matter?
Haha, good point!!! 😆
One of those moments when you think something in your head & it accidentally comes out of your mouth
it can be useful to know the size of the vehicle that needs to get through.
@@claireengland897 Thats what the magical thing called ''mirrors'' are there for, :)
The police used to use the Ford Cosworth Sierra for its high end engine,I think the company was sold not sure so don't quote me on the selling part..🏴👍👍👍👍
Me too.😊 We get out of the way whatever. Whether it's a paramadic rapid response car, a fire engine or a police dog unit, if the blue and twos are on🚨, then get out the way!
What's really cool about our ambulances of any shape or size is that they are free when you need them.
Nothings free.
@@Dionysos640 Heavily subsidised and easier to pay for over a long period of time. The whole point is to have a surplus of cash ready to be used on more than just tax payers. We have visitors from other countries, those too ill to work, homeless and many other types of people who just can't afford the NI. We all pay into it to ensure everyone can get treated no matter the circumstance. It's quality of life over who can afford it.
People should be charged for ambulances if you call them outmoded than twice a year , there are far too many people abusing this system.
If you are the driver of a vehicle involved in a road traffic collision and you have to be transported by ambulance to an accident and emergency dept., you can be charged for the use of the ambulance because you will be insured or should be by law. You are expected to pay out of pocket and reclaim such a charge from your insurance company.
This was actually the case when I worked in the NHS, my last 10 years working nights in A&E. It may have changed since I retired but I don't think it has.
Having said that, unpaid ambulance bills are rarely, if ever, chased down. It is too expensive administratively to do so and, unfortunately, that lets insurance companies off the hook.
@@lindaevans8044
Nonsense! That statement supposes that calling an ambulance more than twice a year is somehow frivolous.
The fact is that repeated call outs are almost always for someone with a chronic life threatening illness who is in crisis.
There will be no third party like an insurance company to bear the cost in the scenario and anyone with such a chronic life threatening condition would be at risk of premature death if they are financially poor and are deterred from calling an ambulance when their life is at risk.
I say this as someone who spent his working life in healthcare, 12 years in the Royal Navy and the rest in the NHS working in accident and emergency departments.
There are some idiots who make unnecessary calls for ambulances but what are we supposed to do, tax stupidity?
The advance Trauma Team consists of emergency Doctors, Consultants and medicine, intensive care, surgery, nursing, health and support staff, who work together as a team to assess and manage the trauma patient. These people can perform surgeries at the roadside and the Doctor will take charge of the entire trauma deciding how patients will be transported to hospital i.e. road or air.
Advanced Trauma Team in London to deal with stab and knife wounds?
@@Wee_Langside They will, but despite what Fox News tells you they are rare and reducing in numbers.
@jchinuk being in the UK don't watch Fox News. I don't believe a lot of BBC, ITV or Sky
@Wee_Langside they deal with serious medical incidents, mostly life threatening accidents and medical emergency
Each emergency vehicle has its own colour, police, yellow and blue, ambulance , yellow and green, the ambulance cars are first responders, they get there quicker, fire engines yellow and red.
Blue lights show better at night so they don’t have to use the siren (disturbing the peace ) and the sirens are designed to give a directional indication of where they are approaching from, hence sounding the same.
Hope this helps?
I've been driving for 35yrs and have always either got out of the way or given way to emergency vehicles.
Last year I needed the hospital in an emergency. The ambulance drove like a race car while I was strapped down to a bed and my wife was clinging on for her life. I was so glad other people did what I've always done.
Red lights are everywhere, so would not be particularly noticeable. Blue lights are reserved for emergency vehicles so you see a hint of flashing blue you know what's coming. In addition most UK emergency vehicles are fitted with directional multi-tone sirens which can help to pinpoint their location.
You can hear a burst of white noise in some types of sirens, which makes it even easier to pick out in a built-up area where there can be lots of echoes.
Blue light penetrates rain and mist better than does red light.
Yes it is always a blue light used, only exception is emergency doctors who use a green light in emergencies.
@@martinwebb1681 Green light affords them no exemptions to the road traffic act, they cannot exceed the speed limit, contravene a keep left bollard or treat a red light as a give way, a green light is nothing more than a courtesy light.
On rare ocassions you might see a vehicle with a Green and Blue light, in which case the blue light supercedes the green one and means the relevant exemptions apply as mentioned above.
@@RichWoods23 Actually Roadcraft states that the change of tone in a siren is what gets most people's attention. In my 7 years of policing that is my experience too. Changing the siren and the audible change in tone is when people suddenly notice you.
My adult son who has epilepsy had a seizure in the middle of a pedestrianised shopping street in Manchester and badly damaged his face as he hit the pavement. First thing to mention was how wonderful the passers-by were. They immediately organised themselves into a little team with one person getting water, one getting cloths, one phoning for an ambulance, others picking up his stuff that had flown everywhere etc. They were all amazing. But the first responder who arrived came on a bike!! He apparently patrols the centre giving first aid. He managed to stop the bleeding and patched him up until the actual ambulance arrived. Can't remember what colour his bike was - and he didn't have a siren!
The paramedics on bikes in Manchester would often shelter from the rain in the entrance lobby of the building where I worked
We often used to see them whizzing about in the city centre
So glad they were able to assist your son
He didn't have a siren But I bet the first responder was screaming "GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
Did they shout "woooOOOOOoooo woooOOOOOoooo"?
Is it an English thing, a Manchester thing or a northern thing? My friend tripped and fell outside a corner shop in Manchester and split his forehead. The people in the shop both shoppers and staff came out to help him and somebody in a house opposite who'd seen him came rushing out too. Like you said within minutes they were all working as a team. Lovely people.
@@kernow9324 LOL, "Nice one".
Red lights are illegal to display on the front of the vehicle in the uk, it doesn’t matter who you are, but red lights to the front are a NO GO because red indicates the back of a vehicle so you can easily tell which direction it is travelling.
Emergency vehicles have red rear flashing lights for when they arrive on scene or for creating a rolling road block as red signifies STOP to the vehicles behind.
You’re right, but displaying red to the front is only illegal during the hours of darkness.
Breakdown trucks are now allowed to have red flashing lights instead of amber ones so that would mean their use in forward facing situations.
@@Ken_Norman not heard of that one before, nor can I find any info on it online, would you care to elaborate where that is written please?
@Ken_Norman nope. It's illegal any time of day. An illuminated light is an illuminated light - doesn't make any difference if the sun's out or not.
Hello ladies, I'm a former LAS (London Ambulance Service) Paramedic. We have a charity called London Air Ambulance which operates from Europes highest helipad at Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel. During daylight hours the helicopter delivers a trauma doctor and paramedic to the most seriously injured people but during nightime they cannot land as visibility is obviously a problem. During nightime the same doctor and paramedic still deliver the same level of care to trauma victims but in a car.
The sirens change. It was found that people were aware of the siren but sometimes failed to react, but if you changed the tone, say as you approached a junction, it was the actual change that really grabbed attention and folks would look up and react. So sirens change depending on circumstances. Its a useful tool.
Our ambulances don’t cost $3k per ride either ;) love you guys
yes it does, just everyone pays for it not just the person in the back.
It does, it’s just paid by everyone through taxes.
I’m English I know how our system works
@@tinytank6642 It doesn't. It's probably more like half that.
Do remember that $3k includes profit for the ambulance company.
@@tinytank6642 After a car accident your car insurance will be charged. I think the price is around £220.
Fellow Brits, when that 1st police car came round the corner, I automatically started hearing the opening theme to the Bill
There was something mesmerising about those walking feet on the end credits lol
@@KatieM786 😄
@@KatieM786 thats history right there. The trip down memory lane. apparently they going to reboot The Bill.
😂😂YES
I still call them jam sandwiches....which ages me automatically
In this video, you only really heard the wailing siren. You noticed that all emergency services use the same set of sirens (for the most part) and even though you heard mainly the wailing sound, there are more. All our emergency services use the same sirens because for us it is more important to know where and how far away the vehicle is than it is to know what kind of emergency it is. Also, a lot of research has been done into sirens and it makes sense to apply that to all services. It's fascinating to understand why UK emergency services use different siren sounds. Each type of siren, like the "Wail," "Yelp," "Hi-Lo," and "Piercer," serves a specific purpose. Variation in siren sounds helps capture attention more effectively, especially in urban environments where echoes can confuse direction. Different frequencies penetrate various ambient noises better, ensuring that sirens are heard clearly in diverse settings. This approach also helps reduce auditory fatigue and maintains the impact of the sirens over longer distances and times.
Additionally, the situational use of different sirens, such as using the "Piercer" in heavy traffic or alternating sounds for high-urgency situations, enhances response efficiency. Local regulations standardise these practices to ensure uniformity in emergency protocols.
On a psychological level, the immediate recognition of varying siren patterns triggers quicker reactions from the public. Advances in siren technology, including digital controls and directional sound, further improve their effectiveness. Overall, the strategic use of different siren sounds by UK emergency services is crucial for optimising their response capabilities and ensuring public safety.
"Advanced Trauma" ambulances and the teams that man them, are usually vehicles that can respond to an emergency more quickly than a normal, large ambulance can. Whereas regular ambulances are designed to carry patients to hospital (if necessary,) the Advanced Trauma Team vehicles are utilised to quickly get to the patient, assess their condition accurately, and to resuscitate them (if necessary) as soon as possible. The team will then stabilise the patient, before the regular ambulance arrives to transport the patient to hospital.
They have a similar role in Hong Kong, advanced care paramedics racing around on motorbikes dodging and weaving through traffic to get to a patient before the meat wagon.
My husband had fell down the stairs, smashed his head, the emergency ambulance can really quick the paramedics called for help because of the head trauma which arrived within minutes. hubby also had a punctured lung and two broken ribs. I got to ride in the front of the ambulance with the driver with the sirens on.! Was a special experience to see how skilled the driver was and how vehicles in front moved to the left.
All paramedics can do resuscitation. The advance trauma team personnel are trained and qualified to administer specific life saving drugs and sometimes carry specialised doctors on board. They can also reduce open fractures where necessary which is vital to preventing infections getting into the wound with the subsequent dire consequences prior to travelling to the appropriate hospital
advanced (not advance) trauma teams are normally advanced paramedics (more qualified than normal paramedics) or trauma doctors.
@@rowleyparks Learned a bit about traumatology recently watching interviews with Dr Gary Hartstein who was the F1 Meidical Officer comparing the levels of care that Indycar have. The first responders involve specialised trauma doctors, paramedics and firefighters in Indycar where as in F1 it's a legal battle involving local authorities and the medical crew are just there to oversee and make sure the series gets sued.
My father was a fireman in the UK. He was hit by a car as he stepped off of the fire truck and was seriously injured. Following the accident all fire engines in the UK had fluorescent reflective strips fitted to them
I work for the London Ambulance Service as an assistant practitioner (I basically assist the paramedics to do the job) and there’s a lot of interesting things about our vehicles.
So there are 3 settings to the sirens, for standard police vehicles and ambulances. The first is called the wailers, the longer up and down type one. The next is the yelps, the shorter one. The last one the a faster, super short sound that is super loud. We are trained to switch between the 3 (mainly just the first 2) depending on what is happening on the road. The change of sound is what makes people recognise you’re there. There’s also the air horn which is the big honk sound you recognised which is used to really get people’s attention. Our sirens don’t go nee naw anymore 😢
Most of the LAS trucks are Mercedes but are being changed to Ford slowly. The cars are also mainly Mercedes but also Mustangs now. The cars (called first response units or FRU in LAS) are staffed by 1 paramedic and they are used to get to emergencies faster, they are normally followed by a truck (a DCA, double crewed ambulance) with 2 clinicians on it later. The advanced trauma team (HEMS, helicopter emergency medics) is a paramedic and a doctor who come out to major trauma cases e.g. cardiac arrests, big bleeds etc. They are the same teams that go on the helicopters during the day, the cars operate at night.
In London we also have paramedics on bicycles (CRU) and motorbikes (MRU) that mainly operate in the city centre. They can get to emergencies a lot quicker through the congestion often a lot quicker than the cars or trucks. We also have specific mental health cars (not very many), maternity cars, bariatric (especially obese people) trucks with different equipment on, non-emergency transport vehicles (NETS) that don’t use the lights or sirens, hazardous area teams (HART) for emergencies at height or involving water etc, tactical response cars (TRU) that are paramedics trained to assist police in firearms situations (kind of like swat but medics) and a whole ton of specialised vehicles that are used in major events like those with multiple casualties. It’s kinda nuts how many different vehicles and units we have! We have whole teams called make ready who stock, clean and fix most problems with the vehicles.
Sorry for the super long comment! Hope it was helpful ❤
Great description
The bright yellow on all emergency vehicles is a European standard (European Emergency Yellow) because it's super visible and not used for anything else.
Our sirens are optimised to be very audible but also they change because it helps other road users focus and locate the vehicle.
Not everyone has to have the European standard though.. Scotland still often has white but keep the battenburg pattern, which looks better IMO.. cleaner 🙂
Bright yellow also used on motorway repair vehicles
@@Dan.Dawson As a scot I think the english ambulances look weird because ours are white as a base not that green/yellow the english use.
The local Care company that uses Vw's for their staff to visit the elderly in their homes has cars that hi viz yellow colour with their emblems on. It's only the base colour of the Battenburg used with another colour representing the emergency service it belongs to.
@@creator000 google english ambulances then google Scottish ones. I'm so used to the white that the yellow looks wrong.
We call it ‘the blues and twos’ - blue lights and two tones.
It doesn’t matter what’s coming you just have to get out of the way as soon as - some roads are really small.
We have medical rapid response vehicles like that trauma car that are sent ahead of a main ambulance and have higher trained response people.
Also our alarms are directional - you’ll hear it far far louder as it comes up to you so as a driver you know it’s coming at u rather than away from u.
We have multiple differing emergency vehicles for a variety of responses. Police dog cars, police transport vans for putting arrested people in when there’s groups of them. Our ambulance service is also a separate entity to the fire service unlike the US.
The hatchback rapid response vehicles like that Welsh on with the dragon tail on carry a huge amount of special kit in them.
On january 31st, what I thought was a very bad migraine turned out to be something a tad worse, an ambulance was called which turned up in 10 minutes, it took 30mins to get to the local gerneral hospital, where I had a CT scan confirmed I had a small bleed on my brain. This hospital in Barnet, north London did not have the facilities to deal with my medical pridicament, so I was transferred by ambulance under blues and twos (lights and sirens) from Barnet to UCLH in central London, the best hospital in the country for nuerological conditions, so by the time the bleed (a sub arachnoid haemorrhage) became so serious that I was unresponsive, I had an emergency proceedure carried to relieve the pressure that had built up in my noggin due to the bleed. 16 days later after 4 more CT scans, 2 angiograms, 1 MRI scan, 1 24 hour ECG, an EEG and a shed load of tablets I was discharged. 4 months later I'm in better health than I'm in the best health than I've been in the last 10 years, I'm a grumpy old 66 year old burke. All that cost me nothing and should I have another episode it would still cost me nothing. I wonder what my medical bills would be if I was an american?
Have had something similar, and I kept thanking God I wasn't American! Yes I'd paid for it through my taxes all my working life, but it was there when I needed it, no having to pay upfront then wrangling with insurance companies afterwards about what was included and what was not.
@@Badgersj I felt like a fraud in the ward I was in as everyone else were in much more severe conditions than I was, apart from face planting a couple of times, due to low blood pressure, a full bladder and bunged up alimentery canal for 9 days ( Man, those supositories turned you from bunged up to rocket powered in minutes!) I came out of it remarkably unscathed. The only sign of any brain damage is the fact that I started using emojies, where as before I always said, if you see me using emojies, you have my permission to shoot me!
The American price amount would of been a arm, a leg and a kidney lol
@@wedammer 😆 Yes I flatly refused to have any laxatives when I was in, I'd far rather be bunged up for a bit!
On your way down to UCLH you undoubtedly went past my flat in Whetstone as the A1000 appears to be the main drag for emergency vehicles to/from Barnet hospital. Glad to hear that you are one of the people are being saved by the regular blues and twos going past my windows.
The whole UK emergency teams use many different vehicles. You'll see Vauxhall, BMW, Audi, Mercedes Benz, Skoda, VW, Volvo, Ford, Tesla, Toyotas. They use a multitude of vehicles.
Also Honda & BMW motorcycles 🙂
The reason we have ambulance "cars" is for certain smaller triage and initial assessment. If it requires an ambulance van, one will follow. Eg..an old lady feeling unwell. she can be assisted by someone from a car. If she needs to go to hospital an actual ambulance can follow. Obviously in the case of illness or trauma, that is suspected hospital treatment will definitely be required...an ambulance will just go.
I am a retired Metropolitan Police (London) copper and drove cars, vans and motorcycles in emergency response and pursuit roles. We could switch the "tones" between Yelp, Wail, and Hi-Lo. I drove/rode liveried Rovers, Fords, Vauxhalls, Hondas and BMWs on duty during my service. I think the marques Natasha is struggling to ID are Vauxhall (UK GM brand) and Skoda (VW Group subsidiary)... Both very common Emergency vehicles here. The differences in livery and sound across the country are huge, each county wants to be individual, but it is only a blue light for an emergency vehicle. Red flashing lights are not featured in the UK Highway Code and not used by First Responders.
Just an addition to a comment above two of the cars were Vauxhalls one was a Vauxhall Astra (Buick Verano in America how ever you guys only got it as a sedan) the other one that you said went by too fast was a Vauxhall insignia (Buick regal in America) and the vehicles do have red lights however when responding to jobs they only use blue (emergency services eg ambulance fire police (doctors cars have green flashing lights as well) when they have arrived on scene then they activate the red flashing lights on the rear of the vehicles as well as the blue ones
Advanced trauma teams and motorcycle paramedics are first responders for emergencies
Also bicycle paramedics.
Again, not quite true. Advanced trauma teams will carry doctors, often consultants, along with nurses and advanced trained paramedics who respond as a whole team to the more critical incidents. (I'm a nurse).
You are supposed to move out of the way of emergency vehicles when safe to do so. Pulling over isn't always possible or best choice. For example today I was in the outside lane, ambulance coming up the inside lane which was, however blocked further up so instead of pulling over to the inside lane I stopped and left a good gap which the ambulance could use to move to the outside lane without slowing. It also kept the cars behind me out of their way and being in the outside lane meant they could go into the opposite carriageway to get through the red lights further up. (Any vehicles queued up in front of them at the lights would not legally be allowed to go through them even to allow them past - even crossing the Advanced Stop Line would be an offence and people have been prosecuted and convicted for it. The theory is that as an ordinary motorist you should just sit tight and let the trained emergency service vehicle drivers figure it out and rmtake advantage of their highly-visible vehicles. But obviously if you can move over enough to let them through you do it.
I believe the US is one of a minority of countries that have red lights. In the UK it doesn’t matter what the emergency vehicle is, you hear the siren and get out of the way. Those police cars are not the regular vehicles people drive, they have altered engines and could keep up with and overtake the US equivalents. Great video ladies. Thx for sharing. 😊
Red lights can be mistaken with (break) brake lights. Only useful in combination with blue.
We have red lights in Australia too
Incorrect, the vast majority of police cars in the U.K are stock - that’s why you can buy them cheap when the police send them to auction.
@@reinhard8053 brake
@@bordersw1239 never buy an ex police or ambulance . I got an ex emergency doctors car from Scotland it was 5 years old it still had the strobe lights in the grills . I had it one year it spent 9 months of the road with gear box and drive shaft repairs I bought it for £9000 sold it a year later for£2000
The decals are what’s known as high-conspicuity markings, more commonly known as Battenberg markings (after the checkered cake). They’re used to enhance visibility, and are used in different colours for different services. Blue and yellow for police, red and yellow for fire, green and yellow for ambulance, orange and blue for road maintenance and so on.
Advanced trauma teams are basically highly trained to carry out life saving care at the accident scene and keep that person from death until they can be ambulanced or air lifted to hospital - they perform operations, amputations, give IV medication and can sedate people, and because they travel by car instead of the vans etc, they get there sooner, which increases the patients chance of survival hugely.
The only time red lights are shown on the vehicle is when the vehicles are parked up, you can activate red lights so then you know it’s stationary
That's what is supposed to happen rather than what actually happens.
I use rear reds (Police - the Met) when stopped at the side of the road causing a slight obstruction or to warn approaching drivers (from behind) of an obstruction.
On a traffic stop I would just utilise rear blues and turn the front ones off to stop blinding oncoming traffic and also not to dazzle the person you have stopped.
Yes! I've noticed the use of these more and more.
If it says metropolitan then I believe it will be London area.
Yes reds to the rear when stopped at an incident
To answer a multitude of your questions:
The emergency vehicles don't have red so that they can easily be distinquished from the red tail lights of cars traveling in the opposite direction
The colour patterns generally denote the response - Red/Yellow is Fire, Yellow/Green is Medical & Yellow/Blue is Police
5:00 - Is an Ambulance Support Vehicle usually carrying specialist kit which can be requested to an incident
6:03 - This Police car is a Vauxhall
6:23 - This Mitsubishi pickup is part of the 'Commercial Vehicle Unit' and assists in incidents involving Lorries & Trucks
6:40 - The Advanced Trauma Team and Red car colour denote this vehicle as carrying Paramedics from The London Air Ambulance (The car is a Skoda)
The car is used when it is deemed unsafe or faster than to fly the helicopter (This is why it has 'Support London's Air Ambulance' on the side)
8:40 - Metropolitan Police refers to the Police in London all other locations the police forces state their region
10:29 - You are instructed to pull over for Emegency Vehicles 'when it is safe to do so'
11:27 - Another Vauxhall Police car
13:59 - A Police custody van, used to take criminals to the police station or can provide extra police officers to an incident
14:58 - SUV for The Wales Air Ambulance (which again has the red colour vehicle)
Emergency vehicles do have red lights. Every police vehicle i've ever driven and been in (even the unmarked car) has rear red lights... they just aren't used that commonly.
@@thefiestaguy8831 True enough! If the car is stopped on the hard shoulder, you will always see flashing blue and red. Or if it's in the main carriageway you know to REALLY slow down!
You are not allowed to pull over, even for an emergency vehicle, into a bus lane. Even though the emergency vehicle should not also be using the bus lane, if it is on response it is highly doubtful whether it will be fined. It makes perfect sense for emergency vehicles to use the bus lanes so I don't know why it is not allowed.
@@clivewilliams3661 possibly to avoid vehicles following it getting confused and in the bus lane
Interesting one of the Scania Fire Engines was on Learner driver duties
Nice one ladies. Assorted answers and trivia:
1. The "ambulance cars" are paramedics. The idea is they trade the ability to carry a patient for the ability to get there faster (you can see what the traffic's like). Frankly, they're also cheaper than a fully-equipped ambulance, so you get more units for a given budget. Advanced Trauma Teams are similar to paramedics, but have a full doctor on-board who can do more.
2. Car brands:
7:13 ATT : Skoda (long-standing Czech company, now owned by Volkswagen).
11:27 Police : Vauxhall. Originally a British company, Vauxhall and Opel in Germany were taken over by General Motors in the 1960s(?). For years they produced identical cars, just "badge-engineered" as one or the other brand.
3. The police vans are mostly for a) transporting special units, b) transporting large numbers of regular officers and c) transporting large numbers of arrestees when there are too many to fit in a Police car. British Police generally avoid carrying arrestees in the back of a regular car as much as possible. The prisoner transport vans used to be black and were nicknamed "Black Morias".
4. The red/yellow reflective stripes on the back of vehicles are there to stop other cars from running into the back of them when they're stopped by the side of the road.
5. Blue lights and two-tone sirens are genrally known as "blues-and-twos", so you might say all the vehicles in the vid "have got their blues-and-twos on."
6. Until the blue-and-yellow livery (nicknamed "Battenburg" after the cake) became universal, police had white cars with thin, orangy-red stripes down the side that were nicknamed "jam butties" (jam sandwiches). Sometimes they had the word POLICE written in mirror-writing on the front so that drivers could read it when they saw it in their rear view mirrors. This lead to them (and traffic police generally) being nicknamed "ECILOPs" (pronounced "ecky-lopps").
7. Before Jam Butties, many police cars used to be black-and-white and they were nicknamed "panda cars" (black was later mostly replaced by blue, but the name stuck). Because custom paint jobs were expensive, local police forces sometimes used to do deals with each other: one force would buy standard black cars and the force next door would buy standard white ones. Then their mechanics would swap the doors, bonnets ("hoods") and boot lids ("trunks") over, so one force had black cars with white bits and the other had white cars with black bits.
8. Before they were cut back into near-oblivion, police motorcyclists used to teach advanced riding, from their training manuals, to anyone who paid for a course. They couldn't tell you to break the speed limit of course, so carving through traffic and "getting there promptly" were covered by the euphemism "making progress". Bikers still say things like, "I was 'making progress' ('officer')" when they don't want to openly admit to speeding.
You forgot to mention 'ecnalubma'......
There were a bunch of ERIF engines as well if memory serves!
@@Tilion462 !yuP
This is such a geeky TH-cam video and I love it. First time I've seen your channel and I love your observations. I'm in the UK and I've always been fascinated during my childhood that you use red on your emergency services lights in the US. I'm sure you know now about the blue laterns outside our police stations (station houses) in the UK. That might explain the blue lights only.
Welcome aboard!
The brand you didn’t know was Vauxhall (the first was an Insignia (badged as a Buick Regal in North America) , the second an Astra. The red Trauma team was a Škoda Octavia). Police use cars and vans interchangeably.
As an ex UK Police Officer, watching this brings back the great memories…and PTSD, at the same time! 🫣😄
We used BMW’s as area cars, and Fords as panda cars.. Our traffic department used Rovers, the fastback models, and Volvo T5’s.. I did a traffic attachment, and boy did those Volvo’s fly! Typically a set of front brake rotors would be toast in a matter of a couple of weeks..
Much missed days
Be safe ladies 🙏🏽🇬🇧🇺🇸
Wasn’t it Ford cosworths back in the day? I’m sure they were everywhere at one point!
@@littlemy1773 They were a little before my service started, but yes, Sapphire Cosworths & Escort Cossies were used by some forces
Still drive my old T5 but more for trackdays than anything else, big sleeper
Met or elsewhere? I'm serving in the Met today... 7 years in.
BMW's are mostly replaced by Volvo V90's.
Fords are rare apart from the station vans, whilst we still have some and i've driven them, they are used by any driver not just basic (A to B). We had a 66 plate 1 litre ecoboost one a few years back, wasn't that fast you'd think but actually it was quite nippy, problem is it overheated very easily and I recall being on a blue light run around 5 years ago, going up a hill when suddenly the car came up with "speed limited due to engine overheat"... the car wouldn't exceed 20mph. Sirens wailing and lights flashing in response to an immediate call and we were struggling to get up a hill doing 20mph...
Traffic now mostly use V90's like our area car response team advanced driver does.
Firearms now use XC90's although there are still some BMW X5's floating around, even some on newer 22/23 plates.
BMW pulled out of the authorities market last year I believe it was.
Fire vehicles have RED and yellow chequers, police BLUE and yellow and ambulances GREEN and yellow. The types of vehicles vary from area to area. That van ambulance is not typical we normally use the “box” type of vehicles for ambulances. Police used to use a lot of BMWs but have stopped because they kept catching fire.
The advance trauma team is in a Skoda. They are in cars to get to serious incidents more quickly.
Plus black/yellow Highway Patrol and Orange/yellow is often used by recovery vehicles.
The van would be unlikely to be used for moving patients but could be being used to transport drugs or equipment to an accident or for blood or organ transport. Cars and bikes will also be used by first responders as they can get through heavy traffic faster, cars also may be used by support teams in which case they would follow the more visible conventional ambulance.
The vehicles are a method to transport the bravest, kindest people who put themselves before others............If you are in any kind of trouble they are the first ones you call for..............Brilliant people and very much appreciated by me :-)
Hey, UK paramedic here! We use blue, as you said, because it’s far more visible at distance and at night… AND I red is the colour of stop signals and brake lights, so we use rear reds when stopped on scene only. Also the first ‘ambulance’ you saw (from wales) is an incident support vehicle carrying kit or crew only, but not treating patients. The ‘trauma team’ car you saw is privately operated by a helimed provider for assistance in extreme trauma emergency and often (but not always) operated by a charity or private provider.
Hi. Only Blue of white light can face forwards on vehicles in the UK hence you don't see the red lights. But when the Vehicle is stationary at the incident you will see red light facing backward on the roof bar. The only emergency vehicle that are primarily red are fire service vehicles.
I always notice the couple of beeps they give you after you give way to say thanks, even in these situations they still find time to be polite
Not necessarily so. The different siren tones are changed by pressing the vehicle's horn button, a double 'beep' switches it off when it's not needed, such as when waiting for a jam to clear, and a continuous press (on some vehicles) gives you the air horn.
@@jamiea9718 well you have spoiled it for me now but it is interesting ai thank you
@@jamiea9718 Around here the ambulance and fire engine drivers will often give a quick toot-toot on the bull horn when you pull over in good time to let them pass.
I had to be rushed to hospital by ambulance because of a heart attack. While I was being treated in the back of the ambulance, the siren was so loud. It was frightening me, so I asked if it could be turned off, but the paramedics told me they had to use it. When I asked, "I'm not going to die, am I?" one of the paramedics told me, "We're nearly there sweetie." Happy to tell you I didn't die. 🙂God bless our NHS.
Ditto, especially as my nearest major A&E (and only full-time one) is well over an hour away!
As a UK police officer you get used to the siren.
I've sat in the back of enough ambulances riding to hospital with them blaring, and been on enough blue light runs it just becomes the "norm". Some people get an adrenaline rush or "excited"...
I recall last year myself and a colleague in the same vehicle were blue lighting it to a female that had been run over by a van. I knew the area very well and was directing him without using maps or a phone.
We were literally discussing what we had done on our days off previously and what we had planned for the upcoming rest days whilst en-route. A lot of the time the driving and the siren become "second nature" and it's just something you hear.
@thefiestaguy8831: my father was an old fashioned Bobby, 1951 - '73: when he started they didn't have sirens ... they had bells, and whistles; Police Boxes, Phone Pillars, and Sergeant's on push bikes cycling around to check the beats LOL 😆
@@thefiestaguy8831 You may have "actually" been discussing. You would certainly have not been "literally" doing so! Also, "en route" isn't hyphenated!
@@SpeccyMan Sorry... I didn't realise the grammar police were here.
My Dad was a Police Officer from 1989-2020 so, naturally, I've seen a lot of emergency vehicles in my time. His favourite police car was the Sierra Cosworth, in which he once did a 15.5 mile journey in 6 mins! He ended his career in the rurals where the police also use quad bikes and ATV's. He's got some stories to tell for sure!
I serve in the Met but I would have some doubt behind what you were told...
15.5 miles in 6 minutes means travelling at 154.8 miles per hour constantly (as an average) for 6 minutes... whilst this is possible it must have been a motorway journey to be even remotely true.
The standard police response driver training course where I serve has you driving at high speed on the motorway with no flashing lights or siren, but even then you typically only get to 130-145.
Bearing in mind most cars are limited to 155mph
30mph is 1 mile every 2 minutes.
60mph is 1 mile per minute
120mph is 2 miles per minute
180mph is 3 miles per minute.
The fastest I have ever known someone to drive was in a pursuit.... the officer was doing 160mph pursuing a stolen vehicle failing to stop. Even then the speed kept going from 160 down to around 100 and back to 160 when traffic ahead held them up (motorway pursuit).
@@thefiestaguy8831 Most cars are not limited to 250kph(155mph), those that are are mostly German to comply with their manufacturer's voluntary limit. Most cars simply can't achieve that speed and many, particularly sports cars, exceed it. My 500E is geared down to 250kph but with the long axle can achieve 170+mph. It is not unusual to see cars on the German Autobahns exceed the voluntary limit as its very easy to modify these cars. It is fortunate that in UK that mostly conditions don't allow speeds much over 100-120mph due to the crowding of our motorways
Fun little fact, emergency vehicles use more colours than just blue lights. Police, fire and ambulance all used blue and white lights primarily, and red lights on the rear for when theyre on a scene. Other emergency services use different lights too, Private ambulances, HEMS Trauma Teams, and on call doctors, community responders also use Green lights. Nowadays in the county I'm in we have Skoda, Volvo, Vauxhall and BMW police cars and they all serve specific roles. BMW and Volvos are normally used for Traffic Policing, and the Skoda's as what what we call 'area cars' and Vauxhalls are used by Police community support officers. Our undercover cars are also incredibly smart haha.
Omg i love your banter with eachother, its very cute and wholesome, keep up the amazing work
Thank you 😊
I drive an FRV (Fast Response Vehicle) ambulance car. It’s a Skoda Scout 4WD.
I hadone those I think it was from the Scottish area by the registration number it still had the strobe lights fitted . The transmission and 4 wheel drive unit broke down every month . It spent 9months of the year being repaired
Blue lights are only used by emergency vehicles so they won't be confused with red brake lights.
Back in the 1950's and 60's London had bad fog. In an experiment it was discovered Blue lights were visible far more and from further away than any other light colour.
So Emergency vehicles got blue lights. They reflect off things really well, as can be seen @ 8 mins in, when the Trauma team's Skoda circuits Traflgar Square London. Look at the pedestrians hair light up .
Often if you're on a motorbike (helmet) or in a van, you'll see the blue lights reflecting off your surroundings (cars, buildings). Helpful when you can't see them directly, or even hear them in a helmet.
Traffic police generally have more/bigger lights on their cars.
Blue: The primary color for emergency vehicles in the UK and Europe, blue lights are easy to see from a distance, especially in the dark.
Always been blue lights in the UK. We sometimes refer to them as blues and twos, as in blue lights and 2 tone siren. We are supposed to pull over if there’s an emergency vehicle, providing it’s safe to do so.
Blue and yellow equals police
Blue and green equals ambulance.
Red and green equals fire
Red and yellow for fire, not green
Orange and Yellow for Blood delivery
Orange white Mountain rescue
Yellow and green = Ambulance
Yellow and Green is ambulance where I am... in London.
I serve in the met and most of our fleet are Yellow and Blue chequered, some are still using the old "Jam sandwich" style livery but those cars are mostly gone.
All Uk ambulances are laied-out in the same way. Doesn't matter if you're in a Ford, Merc or VW, each drawer contains the same kit. We built an ambulance boat for our Channel Islands, the interior is exactly the same as the vans.
Sorry but the Channel Islands are not yours, We are Crown Dependency and Belong to Duke of Normandy (Your King)
I am so glad that after a period of repose you are both back happy and sassy.
3:08 volvo v60 6:04 Vauxhall insignia 6:21 Mitsubishi L200 6:50 skoda superb estate 8:43 bmw G30 5 series touring 9:21 bmw f15 x5 11:25 Vauxhall insignia wagon
Not many people know this, but the sirens although sound the same each service has a slight pitch change in sirens so the emergency services can tell which emergency vehicle is coming.
I work for the ambulance service and I can confirm this to be true. You work for a service long enough, you can tell the difference between the three
Wales here :) the car you saw with the dragons tail is part of the air amblance,when the helicopter is not in service the doctor etc travels in this
The Advance Trauma Team car was a Skoda Octavia .The Police car that passed quickly, earlier on, was a Vauxhall Insignia.
Worth noting that Vauxhall doesn't exist in America, i believe the equivalent is Buick...
@@PedroNeves-hm5xm
Used to be part of General Motors
I - sorry if I repeat things said before - In the UK an emergency vehicle on a shout is said to be going ‘Blues and Twos’ for the lights and the old two tone siren, which you heard from the white ambulance. Sirens are only used if the road ahead is blocked, unlike the Philadelphia fire department I had the misfortune to overlook from a hotel room once, who used full sirens every time they went out in the middle of the night, no matter how deserted the road was! Generally, our emergency vehicles can call several different sirens, the common wail and woo-woo, the old nee-nar, the loud horn and a white noise siren.
The chequered marking is called Battenburg (named after the cake of the same name) developed in the UK in the 1990s and now used in many other countries, including Canada. As well as the three main colours already mentioned, on the motorways you see black and yellow = Highways Agency and on the coast you also see Navy Blue and Yellow = Coast guard; there are others as well, all with their own colour pattern.
Do they still use the white noise siren? I remember when that was coming in and the bursts of white noise would intersperse with the siren sound, I *think* I remember was because it helped people position the source better? Something like that?
Our local ambulances still do on occasion. Meant to help drivers determine the direction the noise is coming from.
“Lights and music”. I believe police cars with red stars on the bumpers are armed police.
Our emergency vehicles are only supposed to use sirens after 7am and before 11.30pm. (Same as for all car horns.) but in practice they will use them if they deem it safer. But, is there any truth in the rumour that blues and twos means "I want to get back to the station for a cuppa"?
In the UK red lights are not permitted on the front of any vehicle. It's blue strobes for police, fire, ambulance (plus some others) and green for emergency doctors (rarely used).
Have you noticed a lot of road side construction equipment now has flashing green lights on them (or at least they do here in Wales) I've wondered why that might be as like you I thought green meant doctor.
Brit here... Our sirens are designed to project sound in front of the emergency vehicle rather than just being LOUD. They also have 2 sound signatures because it has been discovered that by changing tone and tempo draws more attention to the vehicle than having a single tone. It's like roundabouts, they have been proven to be more efficient. Maybe it would be a good idea if the US adopted UK/European emergency sirens. By the way those Volvos and BMW sedans are V70s and series 5's with a top speed of well in excess of 150 mph. The trauma team vehicle is an NHS emergency trauma surgeon and nurse with a mobile field surgical kit in a car. Of course you need a single payer national health service to fund things like this, so it is unlikely you will be seeing them in the US any time soon.
The European siren on emergency vehicles has been scientifically proven to be better than American sirens. It covers twice the distance range of the American siren.
So what
@@MrMarkcalland Ditto to your post. Absolutely pointless & rude.
I got to visit my local air ambulance this month. Amazing opportunity after winning their super draw raffle 😊
The stuff they have is amazing and to view everything they have and the equipment was so fun. Especially the big practice helicopter for training that was donated to them by a family ❤
This was the ONLY circumstance I would like to meet them. They do amazing work, especially since they are charities 🚁
I have to say, I was *bloody* glad to see them when they were needed! In my case it was the RAF rescue team, responding to a friend, with a winch-and-stretcher air lift to the local hospital, followed by a 7-hour trip in the road ambulance, immobilised, to the trauma hospital and 10-hour rebuild op. All free at point of need. Oh, and can I mention (having just watched "what the British did for us" that the lifeboat was invented in Sunderland, England? and also free despite not being government funded in the same way.
@@GlimpseMaster how did I forget the lifeboat! 🤦🏻♀️ Growing up my Dad was a fisherman and had to be rescued a couple of times.
I think living my whole life on the coast I forget about them. Local don’t tend to use them here as much as the tourists we are bombarded by on the Kent coast in the summer. Sadly not everyone is taught well to swim in school. In our town all our schools make sure we can swim and at an early age because of the dangers of the water on our door step.
Rip tides etc are knowledge we grew up with but not everyone learns this in school.
I have never encountered mountain rescue either, I suppose that’s another emergency service you don’t think about. And alongside the RNLI we have the coastguard too.
I think UK vehicle lighting regulations prohibit front-facing red lights on a moving vehicle, and red lights on the roof light bar only illuminate (to the rear) when the vehicle is static at an incident. Lighting regulations are so strict that white rear number plates are not permitted due to 'white-light' reflection at the vehicle following you. Someone else may be able to clarify this.
yep.if you see red lights we are trained to stop.a car braking, red stop lights.so a car coming towards you on a dual carriage way"2 way street"with red lights showing on front could cause hell of a lot of accidents due to sudden braking.so yes.no red lights allowed where visible to on coming traffic.same with white lights at the rear.you may think the car in front is coming towards you when in reality you are just getting closer to it.
Correct. I serve in the Met.
Red lights is applicable to rear facing only. Most police vehicles including every one i've ever driven (even unmarked) have some form of red lights, whether overt or covert.
The colour coding of the vehicles is simple, too: yellow with blue rectangles - police; yellow with green rectangles - ambulance and first responders ("trauma team"); yellow with red rectangles - fire services. Yellow with black rectangles is the non-emergency traffic officers - no blue lights, but authority to direct or intervene with traffic.
Blue is the predominant colour for emergency vehicles in the UK and Europe. Blue is easy to see from a distance, especially in the dark. Amber is traditionally associated with danger, and is therefore used as warning lights on vehicles and also on the roadside.
It's an easy system. If you see blue flashing lights, it's an emergency vehicle. They aren't allowed on anything else.
Yeah, isn't it illegal for any random to put any blue lights on their vehicle coz of this?
So many differences between the USA and the UK!! ❤ I really loved seeing this!
If only Oscar Wilde had something to say about that.
America absolutely wins in this. I love the custom Ford Explorers you have 😍, and who can forget the absolute classic that is the Crown Victoria.
And those Firetrucks - absolute works of art - world famous - and treat and maintained with total respect for the job they do. 👏👏
Watch an old British movie, and the police, fire and ambulance vehicles all had BELLS not sirens. I remember them well, especially the fire engines, where a member of the crew would be manually ringing the bell.
And then enjoy watching Clousea for the old French sirens.
The electrically operated bells on the front bumper of Wolseley police cars (1950s) were called Winkworth Gongs. That's the "You learn something every day" item for today! 🙂
The red air ambulance is a Skoda and they are for major incidents where the actual helicopter air ambulance can’t reach. Also there are red lights on the back of police car light bars which means stay back.
The Trauma Team is usually a Advanced Paramedic and a Doctor. The "battenburg" square colours on the side make it easy to identify emergency services. Blue & Yellow are Police, Red & Yellow are Fire Service, Yellow & Green are Ambulance. We also have Orange & White/Yellow for Mountain Rescue. There is also Yellow & Brown which is Highway Service (non-emergency).
Th 'Advance Trauma Team' is part of the ambulance service, and is exactly what it says - it carries practioners (paramedics and doctors) with specific trauma skills to the scene of an incident where a patient potentially needs a lot of in situ treatment before they can be moved to the hospital. A regular ambulance would also be sent to the scene to assist the trauma team and then tranport the patient to hospital once stabilised. Ambulances for taking patients to hospital are the big boxy things. Other smaller ambulance service vehicles are for transporting paramedics and doctors to the patient.
The Metropolitan Police is the the Police service covering London.
but they don't cover the city of London for historical reasons the city of London has its own police
All you have to know is to get out of the way.
Looks very hard to do in London
@TheNatashaDebbieShow it because it’s a small island that’s why the roads a bit smaller in some areas in around Great Britain or UK but a lot of people just know to move out the way if there able to in the moment
Unless you're being pulled over, of course! You kind of need to know that just moving over to allow them to pass is going to be a "failing to stop" offence!!
You might Not See them coming But you can definetly hear them
I didn't once. And yes, I got points on my license for it.
@@Varksterable deserved
You've obviously never seen teenagers driving a car with the modified stereos turned up to 11.
@Yogoniogi You jerk.
In the mean. And the medium. And the motion. And the choreography.
@@UnknownUser-rb9pd How does a stereo stop you seeing blue lights in your mirrors?
Some are " armed response units" so different paint jobs and usually armed with 9mm pistols and mp5 sub machine guns.but basically, u hear a siren, you see blue lights, you get the hell out of the way and let them pass. As always, a fun vid. Take care ladies!☺
Hi Natasha & Debbie, I've recently started following you on TH-cam. You cheer me up so much. As an official UK citizen and user of ambulance due to chronic health issues. The ambulances we have vary in size due to use. Smaller cars like Volvo's or Vauxhall's are usually rapid response vehicles and don't carry passengers. The sirens are pitched and spaced differently in fire engines, police and ambulance it's not easy to hear on recordings though.We only pull over if it is safe to do so. Roads are very narrow in a lot of areas.
There's a very unique unit in London called the SEG (Special Escort Group) which are an basically a special forces style elite police unit, they're armed, stop for no one and are extremely discreet, they rely mainly on bikes and don't use sirens instead opting for old fashioned whistles you have to blow through as everyone is immune to sirens in a city centre, but a whistle is still shocking, it's fascinating how they work using very minimal tactics and they make their route up as they go so are very flexible, there's an excellent TH-cam video about them called 'Inconspicuous Ingenuity - Escorted by the Met Police SEG'.
The blue lights go back a long way. There were blue lamps in front of police stations before I was born and I'm 70 years old.
I think the first ambulance is more a support vehicle for additional or specialized unit which is why it's a van, rather than the usual larger ambulances for patients
At 4:05, the ambulance isn’t used for carrying patients. It’s for HART (Hazardous Area Response Team), they’re used to help people in anywhere that is hazardous.
Any kind of car that says ambulance isn’t used to transport victims, they’re used to provide emergency medical care. Ambulances and paramedics provide care but if they don’t have the necessary drugs and/or training (for serious injuries), an advanced trauma team will be called. They’ll arrive via car or helicopter depending on how close they are and the area. Rapid Response Teams (all yellow cars that say ambulance) arrive BEFORE the ambulance to provide emergency care and to get to them before the ambulance can arrive due to them being slower!
Another thing, our ambulances aren’t red because they aren’t owned by the fire service, the ambulance service is completely independent and therefore have a unique colour scheme.
Hope this helped! Love the vids!
There is a colour system in the UK for the emergency services... as a previous post stated, if you see a blue light, then get out of the way.... but who are you getting out of the way of..?... All of our emergency vehicles have a checkered colour system. Blue and yellow is police, green and yellow is the ambulance service, and red and yellow is the fire service... a simple system really... (ohhh... and if you ever see a green flashing light on a car, it means it's a medical doctor on an emergency call). On a side note, I never knew I could be so fascinated watching things about my own country, that, because I live here, I take for granted. I love your videos!!... Keep 'em comin'..!
Old joke : "I wanted to call my daughter 'nina' because she was born in the ambulance..."
😂😂
oh i got it lol
I once used that line on a new girl who'd started working with us. I asked her what her name was and she said 'Nina', to which I replied, "So, was your mum a fan of ambulances, then?" - the remark went totally over her head and she looked at me blankly. She apologised later when she'd asked someone else who was present, why they laughed and they explained the joke to her!
Yes, in the 80s my then toddler son called them neenaws, the sirens were very different back then.
Who remembers the little yoghurt pot look blue lights on police cars that, themselves, mostly looked like the first cheap car you got when you were 18😂😂! That was back when dropping litter or being out in the street and looking under 16 were major crimes!
If you're old enough she would be called Dear Doo!
Our local police force has a police tractor. 😂
Is that the Lincolnshire police ?? I think we have one too 😂
Do they have a bailer
No, it's Dorset Police. I think they have other off road vehicles too.
Crop car
@@geoffpriestley7310 Lol, I see what you did there.
Good morning ladies. Great to have you back. As a Brit currently residing in Texas I can advise the major differences as follows. Like most of the rest of the world RED lights are only permissible on the rear of a vehicle. They are not permissible at the front. Most U.K. Emergency vehicles do have red flashing lights when stationary and responding to an incident but that is the only occasion when you’ll see them. As regards the difference in sounds. In the U.K. there are only two approved siren sounds on emergency vehicles. All are treated with equal importance so there is no differentiation between them. The term “give way (yield) to the blue” also refers to the lights and not the siren sounds. There are also laws regarding the decibel level of sirens so U.K. emergency vehicles will only use them when they absolutely have to unlike those in Texas who seem to enjoy the more noise they can make 😂 Finally regarding Debbie’s concerns about moving over on narrow roads. The emergency services in the U.K. are well aware of the issue and will allow for you to find more room to allow them past. As with everything between our two countries there’s no right or wrong method. Just differences.
We only have red lights at the rear of the light bar and they are predominately used once the emergency vehicles arrive on scene.
The high visibility checkerd colours are - Blue/Yellow for Police, Green/Yellow for Ambulance and lastly Red/Yellow for Fire.
Amber: Used as warning lights on vehicles and on the roadside, amber lights are traditionally associated with danger. Amber flashing lights are often used to indicate slow-moving vehicles, such as those involved in road maintenance.
Not all ambulances are small. Some are very big.And they are free.
16:18 The 101 on the back of the van is our non emergency number, 999 is used for more serious matters.
Nowadays in the UK, the American 911 and the European 112 will also get you through to the 999 operators.
@@ianm42yt 112 has worked for many years now. I read somewhere that 911 only works on mobile phones but I just can't find out if that's true or not and don't really want to try it!!
The bright neon yellow stands out much more from other vehicles and also reflects in the dark.
So, some points I picked up watching that hopefully will help! Not sure if these have been mentioned but thought I'd put everything into 1 comment for you.
Emergency Lights:
All emergency lights in the UK are Blue! Red can be used when a vehicle is stationary/on scene but are only visible from the rear!
Green lights are used on vehicles that are used only by Doctors
Sirens:
Sirens are very similar between each emergency service, however once you get used to them you are able to identify the difference between what type of vehicle is responding to you!
Battenberg:
This is what we call the design of the reflective vinyl you see on the sides of the car...
Red/Yellow - Fire
Green/Yellow - Ambulance Services
Blue/Yellow - Police
The few police cars that you were unsure of the brand are Vauxhall. The British variant to Opel branded vehicles.
The white Ambulance van at the start that was Scottish, is most likely a Support Unit for the Ambulance Service, although I don't live in Scotland so not 100% sure on that one.
Don't forget, most of our fire engines (not trucks) have tanks built into them. They carry water and don't always need to connect to a hydrant.
Ambulances were dominantly Customised Mercedes Sprinter Vehicles but in some areas have changed to modified Fiat Ducato Vans I think.
The Red Ambulance towards the beginning is a Skoda. It is part of our Air Ambulance teams (Which in the UK are Charities and not fully Government funded like Ambulances are! There road vehicles are Red in colour with the Green/Yellow vinyl design. These road vehicles are used by Advanced Paramedics/Trauma Doctors who are put through further training to handle more serious/life threatening situations!
The Red Volvo at 15:32 is again, an Air Ambulance Charity so will most likely be Advanced Paramedics/Trauma Doctors.
I'm not fully sure what the scenario is with London because the Met Police use any and all cars for their police cars, but for the most of the rest of the country, BMW/Volvo Estates as we call them (Stationwagons) are our Road Policing Teams, these are the people that handle anything Traffic Related. The BMW/Volvo SUVs are mostly used as ARVs (Armed Response Vehicles) because UK Police do not carry firearms as standard (Excl. Taser) In my area, the Volvo vehicles have start to change to Black paint under the Blue/Yellow instead of White, not sure about other parts of the country.
We have first responders, which are paramedics in cars that assess the situation and decide whether a bigger ambulance is needed.
The square markings are known as 'Battenburg', after the cake. The police will show, at the rear, red and blue when stopped. We (UK) have many specialist emergency vehicles. Too many to list. The sirens have different sounds, the driver choses one to suit situation. A lot of our vehicles were not shown such as the fire platform truck.
The VW van that you noted is not an ambulance that will carry patients. The ambulance cars (station wagons) are paramedics who can get to a patient and provide emergency treatment before a larger ambulance attends. Not all call outs result in patients being taken to hospital.
I assume that this has been answered elsewhere in this video, but the advanced trauma team consists of at least one doctor. They are available at a moments notice, and will respond to any accident that they are called to. They are allowed to open people up on the street as part of the response if they believe that the person would not make it to an ER without their intervention. There is a series called Emergency Response (or something similar) that highlights their work. There was one episode where a female on a bicycle was hit, and the doctor arrived and did his assessment. He determined that she would not make it to the hospital because of her heart, so he opened her up in order to massage the heart in order to keep her alive. When the ambulance arrived, they loaded her and continued with the heart massage on the way to the hospital. This system does save lives because it reduces the time it takes to get help from a doctor/surgeon.
That's incredible!
@@TheNatashaDebbieShowthere’s also a show about the HEART team who help in unusual areas ( 999 rescue squad )and ones that show the air ambulance and the coastguard and lifeboat charity as well you may find it interesting to watch them
I’m not sure why you’d need to know who it is? Any emergency vehicle is as important as the next. If you hear a siren pull over
There are a couple of reasons for using blue lights on emergency vehicles (as opposed to red, as in other countries)
1. Blue lights aren't used on any other vehicles, so a flashing blue light always means 'move out of the way'
2. Blue light is more visible than any other colour, and flashing lights always attract attention more than fixed lights, so your eye is drawn to it.
UK emergency vehicle sirens are different in the UK, and often include short bursts of white noise (it sounds like radio static) White noise contains a lot of high-frequencies, and so is very easy to locate, which makes it obvious where the siren is coming from.