page_title: Emergency vehicle lighting
section_title: Germany
hierarchical_section_title: Emergency vehicle lighting / Usage by country / Germany
caption_attribution_description: English: An Ambulance (de:Rettungswagen) and the car of an emergency physician (de:Notarzteinsatzfahrzeug) from the German district Gütersloh, having switched on their blue flashlights. Deutsch: Ein Rettungswagen und ein Notarzteinsatzfahrzeug, aus dem Kreis Gütersloh, mit eingeschaltetem Blaulicht. Español: Un ambulancia y un vehículo del servicio de emergencias medicales por el médico (de: Notarzt). Vehículos de Alemania, están supuesto de la distrito que se llama Gütersloh.
context_page_description: Emergency vehicle lighting is one or more visual warning lights fitted to a vehicle for use when the driver wishes to convey to other road users the urgency of their journey, to provide additional warning of a hazard when stationary, or in the case of law enforcement as a means of signalling another driver to stop for interaction with an officer. These lights may be dedicated emergency lights, such as a beacon or a light bar, or may be modified stock lighting, such as a wig-wag or hide-away light, and are additional to any standard lighting on the car such as hazard lights. Often, they are used along with a siren in order to increase their effectiveness.
  In many jurisdictions, the use of these lights may afford the user specific legal powers, and may place requirements on other road users to behave differently, such as compelling them to pull to the side of the road and yield right of way so the emergency vehicle may proceed through unimpeded.
  Laws regarding and restricting the use of these lights vary widely among jurisdictions, and in some areas non-emergency vehicles and semi-emergency vehicles may be permitted to use similar lights.
context_section_description: Only emergency and police vehicle may use blue lights. This includes firefighters, rescue services, emergency response vehicles for public utilities and civil defense units. All other kinds of blue lights (e.g. car floor lighting or cab interior lights), including reflective stickers or paintings, are illegal on public roads. Flashing blue lights and sirens may only be used by authorized vehicles in case of emergency and order all other vehicles to make way, since these vehicles have the absolute right of way. Blue lights alone may be used to secure the site of an accident (or a standing emergency vehicle). Sometimes, columns of emergency or police vehicles use blue lights (without sirens) to make the column more visible to other vehicles.
  Blue and yellow are the only colours of flashing lights legal for use on moving vehicles. Other colours, such as red or green are sometimes used to show vehicles of special functions, such as incident command, when stationary.
  German police lightbars often have ‘POLIZEI’ written in white over the dome, and usually incorporate an LED text display that can read, in mirrored writing if towards the front, ‘HALT POLIZEI’ or ‘BITTE FOLGEN’ (‘please follow’), to signal drivers to pull over. In the newest generation, the text display changes between German and English (HALT POLIZEI → STOP POLICE and BITTE FOLGEN → FOLLOW ME).
caption: German emergency vehicles (all blue beacons).
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS CORPORATION", "Image Model": "C5060WZ", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2004:11:24 13:27:16", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 20, 0, 1, 0, 20, 0, ... ]", "Image ExifOffset": "536", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1230", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3477", "EXIF ExposureTime": "8/5", "EXIF FNumber": "16/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:10:09 20:19:13", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:10:09 20:19:13", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "57/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "719", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "418", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}