Amazing!

First that some idiot could run into 40 tons of HUGE YELLOW machine, surrounded by warning vehicles, signs and lights.

Second, that the moron honestly thought he could make money with a suit, and managed to find a shyster who agreed.

There are some real wastes of oxygen out there.

 

well, he was driving a dodge van that was more rust than metal, so it fell apart when he hit the blade at 45mph. his claim was partly that it was not his fault because we were only going 25 mph in a 50 zone, therefore we were obstructing traffic. my claim was that if he did not drive around the 2 escort trucks blocking his way, he would not have been able to try to fit his 7ft wide van in a 4 ft space. ........the judge liked my explanation better.

 

Unfortunately it doesn't always go that well for the people running the warning lights.
I've known several Volunteer FF's that relied to heavily on the their lights to protect them. The caused some pretty severe accidents and then ended up losing their civil lawsuits and getting tickets.
One was even facing jail time but managed to avoid that.

 

I can understand that. In my state, volunteers are allowed green lights on their Personally Owned Vehicles. The color and type of light varies in other states. But I would guess the legal status of the lights does not vary as much. The statutory purpose of the green light is to identify the volunteer firefighter to the officer controlling the scene. It doesn't give the volunteer authority to drive differently than anyone else. It just tells the officer on scene that this particular POV is a responding firefighter.

In the real world, in my neck of the woods, if you see a pickup coming up in your mirror, going fast with a green light, you try to get out of his way. After all, maybe he's responding to your barn on fire.

Lights and sirens on emergency vehicles give them special privileges, but I would guess most laws are written like the law in my state. Here, it's RCW 46.61.035 Pay special attention to c and to the last paragraph.

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The bottom line on just about all such laws, is that you must be doing it safely. If you have an accident while disregarding any traffic law, even with your warning devices on, the issue will be whether you were doing it safely. And an accident almost always indicates you weren't operating safely.

My old high school bro. who is a King County Mountie of many years, once had an accident where he was running code, went through an intersection with lights and siren, and had a guy turn left right into his driver's door. The guy blew a BAC well above the legal limit. This generally means "Go directly to jail, do not pass Go." (Make a note: do not drive into a cop car while drunk. Officer Friendly will not be, after you try to park in his lap. ) But my friend was very glad to hear the other driver testify to hearing the siren. If it could have been established he was not using all his warning devices, they'd have nailed him.

In case of the D8, it was very clear that all the laws were being followed, nobody was speeding, no way the people moving the Cat could be accused of driving unsafely. You do have to wonder about the bozo in the van. Maybe it's because I live in logging country and am used to heavy equipment. But I'd think any driver who can see something on a lowboy that's ten feet across the tracks should expect fourteen feet or so of blade. I don't know what else a transporter could do. Maybe strobes on the tips of the blade? A Star Trek force field?

Back to the original subject of this thread: I do like strobe lights, because they don't use much power. I have had a little yellow strobe on my 4x4 International for years, that draws 0.3 amps. Stick something like that on a tractor or other slow moving rig, and the battery can run it all night.


Hmmm... Washington guys had better look at RCW 46.37.190 carefully. This is buried in it:

I think that answers my question about having such lights on your rig, "just in case." If you build in strobes, a siren, or even a wigwag system, you'd better not get caught with it, while you're on a public road. Legally speaking, if you have those devices, you would have to keep the vehicle on private land.

My guess is, most states have similar laws. It is NOT as if we lived in a free country or anything like that. Be careful. As Heinlein says, "Thou shalt remember the Eleventh Commandment and keep it wholly."

 

all our pickups on the farm, all 25 of them plus tha sercice trucks have flashing and or strobe lights on them. all the farm equipment has strobe or flashing lights.
we have begun tp add LED lighting.

when we move the equipment it helps to have protection

since we can be anywhere doing almost anything involving the farm equipment, we have to have the lights

I work for one of the largest municipallities in alabama and what is wild is that our farm vehicles are more visible than our towns vehicles
I have parted on the side of the road where I may need to park on the side of the road and I will outshine what our town uses

we use mainly whelen or whelen/austin products

the more light the better

as lond as we stay away from red blue or green lights and they are for safety, we are left alone, most of local law enforcemet know us and appreciate that we are visible and safe

 

In Utah, to the best of my knowledge, any vehicle can have orange(yellow) lights flashing if you are pulled off to the side of the road for a blowout, or whatever. They sell both strobe and regular orange lights at every walmart and autoparts store here. They don't give you the right to drive with them on, but you are legally allowed to have them to warn other vehicles that you are disabled on the side of the road. In addition, all the construction vehicles have them too, which is nice to help spot them sometimes.

I agree though, too many people stop and look for the dumbest things. Here, if your on I-15 and the traffic suddenly comes to a crawl, 8 out of 10 times it's because someone is changing a tire on the side of the road, and we all have to stop and watch because its so fascinating to see. Wow, a tire being changed! I'd pay to see that, wouldn't you??? Oh wait, we can see it for free if we slow down to 5mph!

Arrrgggghh!!! IDIOTS