Why are fire trucks and ambulances in some extent being painted yellow, or green in some counties in US? When majority is classic red?
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UK paramedic here, our ambulances are green and yellow purely for the purposes of visibility.
The yellow is reflective and highly visible in all conditions, the green is the necessary darker tone to pair with yellow to increase that visibility even further.
I think research has shown it’s the most visible colour pallatte for all conditions.
Our police cars are blue and yellow (the reflective patterns anyway, cars are white), same reasons, but people have always assosciated blue with the police, green with paramedics. Our uniforms are green too.
Canuckistani here . . . our Emergency services USED to use yellow, as there are ample studies showing it is the most visible colour in the spectrum. Hell, my parents bought a yellow vehicle in the early 80’s SPECIFICALLY because Mom saw something about it on the news.
For whatever reason, sometime in the 90’s, our fire service started to switch back to traditional “red” paint jobs, and the Cops all seemed to go to white cruisers with red and blue trim.
Now the Cops all seem to want “dark” colours (intimidation), which is bullshit in my eyes. Emergency vehicles need to be VISIBLE, which is why I like the UK/Euro aesthetic.
Red is the traditional color associated with fire dept. however, chartreuse (a kind of bright green/gold color) is highest visibility on color spectrum, so some departments use that for maximum visibility during emergency calls.
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