Question about CHP HOV units
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oracavon
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Here's what I get at that URL:
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Mick
Member
There is an AUTHORIZED EMERGENCY VEHICLE INSPECTION CHECKLIST FOR
SELF-CERTIFICATION OF VEHICLE COMPLIANCE located here:
http://www.chp.ca.gov/publications/pdf/chp310b.pdf
SELF-CERTIFICATION OF VEHICLE COMPLIANCE located here:
http://www.chp.ca.gov/publications/pdf/chp310b.pdf
In 1982 there was a very long "failure to yield" incident in Mono County that started near Crowley Lake in the southern portion of the county and ended near Walker in the northern portion of the county. It was not called a pursuit as the driver did not attempt to elude the officer. I don't recall how the vehicle was finally pulled over, but the driver's explanation was that he did not have to pull over for a steady red, only a flashing one! The deputy had been using his PA system to order the driver to pull over. In addition this "failure to yield" went on for nearly 80 miles! Talk about not getting the hint! The driver was obviously misinformed.
The Mono S.O. vehicle was equipped with a single red spotlight next to the driver's door similar to what used to be the CHP standard. These spotlights did not flash. People looking for a CHP vehicle in those days could not id one by looking for lights, but would look back through the windshields of cars and pick out the vertically dash mounted shotguns. I think the CHP started doing this after the Watts riots in August, 1965. Some local agencies followed suit. I think it was done to show power and authority.
The LAPD stayed with their front floor and trunk mounts. LAPD cars had two "cans" on the top of the vehicle that had red steady lights on the front and alternately flashing yellows in the rear. There was no side visibility at all. Code 3 responses were pretty rare in those days as the criteria for them was very strict. Dispatchers had to authorize Code 3's and officer judgement had nothing to do with it. My most recent monitoring of the LAPD seems to indicate that the policy has been loosened up some.
The Mono S.O. vehicle was equipped with a single red spotlight next to the driver's door similar to what used to be the CHP standard. These spotlights did not flash. People looking for a CHP vehicle in those days could not id one by looking for lights, but would look back through the windshields of cars and pick out the vertically dash mounted shotguns. I think the CHP started doing this after the Watts riots in August, 1965. Some local agencies followed suit. I think it was done to show power and authority.
The LAPD stayed with their front floor and trunk mounts. LAPD cars had two "cans" on the top of the vehicle that had red steady lights on the front and alternately flashing yellows in the rear. There was no side visibility at all. Code 3 responses were pretty rare in those days as the criteria for them was very strict. Dispatchers had to authorize Code 3's and officer judgement had nothing to do with it. My most recent monitoring of the LAPD seems to indicate that the policy has been loosened up some.
Mick
Member
That's the first time I've ever heard CHP vehicle shotgun placement was for power and authority. In reality it's for ease in getting to the shotgun. An old timer CHP sergeant know said he used to use the shotgun to hang his hat on at night so truckers would think there was another person in the patrol car.
Watch your rear-view mirrors, Mick
Watch your rear-view mirrors, Mick
Radio_Lady
Member
I've been told that Code 3 calls were at their nadir in the 1960s and early 1970s, when about the only ones that went C-3 were 211s-in-progress, shootings in-progress, 211-silent alarms at banks, and officer/firefighter needs help. During the1970s they began to gradually increase the types of calls that went Code 3.
That's not quite accurate. Response codes were, and still are, assigned by the calltakers. Before 1983 that was police officers working the Complaint Board, and then the job was turned over to civilian PSRs working the "Emergency Board Operator" positions. But the patrol officers given a call have always been authorized to upgrade their response to C-3 if they have independent information about the incident or location. They have to notify Communications that they're doing it, and while I don't remember it ever happening, a field supervisor could countermand that decision.
It was loosened up dramatically under Chief Bratton. First, in May 2004 "Divisional Order No 4" eliminated the dispatching category of "Code 2 High." C-2/High was not a response code for the officers but a dispatching procedure for urgent calls that didn't meet Code 3 criteria. Most of the previously C-2/High calls were recategorized as Code 3, and that change resulted in about a five-fold increase in Code 3 calls.
Then on April Fools Day 2009 Bratton came out with the convoluted five-page "Special Order No 13," which eliminated the former Code-2 "Officer Needs Assistance" call, and slightly changed the definitions of "Officer Needs Help," "Firefighter Needs Help," "Firefighter Needs Assistance," and "Back-up Unit Request" and changed the response for all of them to an identical "a specific unit shall be dispatched Code 3, and ALL additional responding units may also respond 'Code-Three.'" Distinctions without differences.
And finally, but actually encompassing all of the above and then some, for any C-3 radio call "A specific unit shall be dispatched 'Code Three' and ALL additional responding units may also respond 'Code-Three'."
Then a few pages of safe-driving reminders, supervision and auditing procedures, and an "Acknowledgement of Receipt" for the policy which gets signed and put in each officer's personnel package.
So yes, they're tremendously looser with the lights & sirens than they used to be. Interestingly, the officer-involved accident rate hasn't increased any.
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Radio Lady and Mick, thanks for the informative responses. Mind you that I left southern California, for the last time, in August of 1973. My memory of some issues is fading a little.
Radio Lady, I did not state my impression of the authorization for Code 3 responses correctly. I thought that authority rested with the sworn officers inside the old "horseshoe." I took a tour of Parker Center around 1970 and visited the communications facility there. I remember the call slip conveyor belt and the long blackboards behind the call takers. On them were messages about unusual situations such as some one at a particular address being troublesome. Example: woman at 2147 E. 83rd calling in a noise complaint every Tuesday when the city picked up trash on her block. I remember slots in the wall where the call tickets fell onto a desk where an officer did something and then handed to another officer who looked at the back of the large unit status display each radio operator had.
All of this is seen when watching Adam-12 or by visiting Harry Marnell's site. However, the visit there made quite an impression on me and my memory is based on what I saw that day. I remember a light bulb going off when I saw the time stamp machines all over the room. Now I knew what was always making that infernal racket in the background of radio transmissions. It sounded like a bunch of metal lunch boxes being dropped on the floor.
I do remember that several young males in the group wanted to meet the woman behind the voice on the radio in the Adam-12 series. Rumor was that she was very attractive. Some had not heard that she was working at the Valley Comm Center at the time.
My impression that Code 3 authorizations were strict was correct. I remember that only one unit, the primary unit for the call, could roll Code 3. The reasoning was that if two units had lights and siren on they would not notice the other and the possibility of significant collisions was high. Based on my limited experience with lights and siren driving, I was far more conscious of my movement into intersections rolling Code 3 than I would otherwise be. Hyper-conscious would be the appropriate word. The USFS fire rigs I drove were equipped with what was called the "idiot switch," referring to the light and siren switch on the Federal box. "Throw that switch and everyone around you turns into an idiot."
Mick, it was my impression, and most people I spoke to at the time, that the shotguns were there to convey a sort of a "don't mess with me" image. Thank you for sharing the actual reason they were mounted that way. Now it seems as if every LE vehicle has a cage and bucket seats in the front, instead of the old bench seats, allowing the shotgun and assault rifle to be mounted vertically between the seats. Either way they do make a good hat hook.
Radio Lady, I did not state my impression of the authorization for Code 3 responses correctly. I thought that authority rested with the sworn officers inside the old "horseshoe." I took a tour of Parker Center around 1970 and visited the communications facility there. I remember the call slip conveyor belt and the long blackboards behind the call takers. On them were messages about unusual situations such as some one at a particular address being troublesome. Example: woman at 2147 E. 83rd calling in a noise complaint every Tuesday when the city picked up trash on her block. I remember slots in the wall where the call tickets fell onto a desk where an officer did something and then handed to another officer who looked at the back of the large unit status display each radio operator had.
All of this is seen when watching Adam-12 or by visiting Harry Marnell's site. However, the visit there made quite an impression on me and my memory is based on what I saw that day. I remember a light bulb going off when I saw the time stamp machines all over the room. Now I knew what was always making that infernal racket in the background of radio transmissions. It sounded like a bunch of metal lunch boxes being dropped on the floor.
I do remember that several young males in the group wanted to meet the woman behind the voice on the radio in the Adam-12 series. Rumor was that she was very attractive. Some had not heard that she was working at the Valley Comm Center at the time.
My impression that Code 3 authorizations were strict was correct. I remember that only one unit, the primary unit for the call, could roll Code 3. The reasoning was that if two units had lights and siren on they would not notice the other and the possibility of significant collisions was high. Based on my limited experience with lights and siren driving, I was far more conscious of my movement into intersections rolling Code 3 than I would otherwise be. Hyper-conscious would be the appropriate word. The USFS fire rigs I drove were equipped with what was called the "idiot switch," referring to the light and siren switch on the Federal box. "Throw that switch and everyone around you turns into an idiot."
Mick, it was my impression, and most people I spoke to at the time, that the shotguns were there to convey a sort of a "don't mess with me" image. Thank you for sharing the actual reason they were mounted that way. Now it seems as if every LE vehicle has a cage and bucket seats in the front, instead of the old bench seats, allowing the shotgun and assault rifle to be mounted vertically between the seats. Either way they do make a good hat hook.
code3cowboy
Member
Wrong, the steady red with the siren sounded as necessary are required when traveling code or requesting the right of way or effecting a stop. Running the rear lights only is merely additional warning and is NOT traveling code 3. I use the rear lights only all the time for high profile warning with nothing to the front, most agencies have some setup for this in the majority of emergency vehicles.
Many federal vehicles do not comply with the steady red for one reason or another. Generally someone orders a dashlight for the G Ride and only cares that it is red and blue and flashes. Meh.
code3cowboy
Member
The reason is the type of headlight.
Many vehicles do not use the good old high side (or ground side) switched headlights anymore. Some vehicles have reflectors that move to change the beam spread to a full beam pattern, some have HIDs, and some (dodge in particular) use switching systems that come from a computer and can not be messed with unless you want to cause some major damage.
There are still vehicles out there which will take a flasher just fine. Alternately you can put an extra bulb in each housing and flash those bulbs, but the beam pattern will not be that of the OEM high beam and thus the people ahead of you will see the pattern but it will not be as bright. Doing so also will void the DOT and ASE certifications on the light housing.
Radio_Lady
Member
It's hard enough for trainee operators to learn all that stuff and remember it a day later, much less catching and recollecting it 40 years later, after just one visit, but your memories aren't that far off at all. I didn't mean to reply to you with the tone of keyboarding that I did.
It was the call-taking Complaint Board Officers (sworn) who decided on Code 2, Code 3, or no code before they sent the call ticket down the chute. Since they had talked to the "PR," they had all the details, so were in the best position to decide on the codes for each call. The two or three officers inside the horseshoe - they were known as the "dispatchers" - were responsible for determining the division of each call and then selecting the unit to assign based on who was available according to those round buttons on each RTO's status board. Then they would slide the ticket through and the RTO would take it from there. Hotshot calls were handled a little differently, as the Complaint Board Officer would intercom the Link Officer (also in the horseshoe) immediately and give him the basics of the call verbally, and he would broadcast the call before the ticket even came down the chute. It then went to the RTO for the concerned division who again handled it from there. Same concept today, except the EBO/PSR does the initial emergency broadcast and sends it electronically to the RTO/PSR for the division of the call.
It could get very noisy, since we were all sitting so close together in there, and the sound-deadening ceiling tiles had long since been painted over several times which probably made them useless for their intended purpose. And we each had two sound-machines within about a foot of our headset mics, a time clock which we would ka-ching the ticket into each time we would broadcast or change the status of a call, and a ker-chunking sequential number stamp for every ticket we handled. I like your "lunch boxes being dropped" description.
There were always people, mostly patrol officers, dropping in ostensibly just to watch the goings-on after they'd booked someone at Jail Division or something, but soon the conversation would drift to their asking about a particular RTO whose voice they liked or whom they'd heard about for one reason or another. Shaaron Claridge was the Adam-12 RTO, and she went to Valley Communications early in her career and stayed out there until they all came back to the new dispatch center in the dungeon four floors beneath City Hall East in 1981.
Yes, you're absolutely correct about only one unit being assigned Code 3 to each call by Communications, and even with Div Order #4 that's still the case, as even after saying everybody can GO C-3 to those calls, it says in bold print "NOTE: Communications Division shall not dispatch more then [sic] one unit Code Three to the same emergency call." I've always thought the reasoning behind that was a little faulty, as LAFD sends multiple task forces to calls all day long and seldom do they run into each other, but perhaps it's precisely because they do it all the time that they learn to do it safely, while police officers don't go Code 3 to everything they're sent on. And an oncoming triple is a lot easier to spot in traffic than a Crown Victoria.
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Mick
Member
There's a photo of this dispatcher here:
Gillette On Hillsborough: "Wage Freeze in Progress, 379 South Branch Road...."
Gillette On Hillsborough: "Wage Freeze in Progress, 379 South Branch Road...."
Radio_Lady
Member
While still working full-time as an RTO, Shaaron used her Jack Webb earnings to get her pilot's license and buy herself an airplane. She flew off into retirement about 20 years ago, and the young lady in that circa-1968 photo, and her retired-policeman husband, are now in their 70s.
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Well, my memory of the Parker Center tour way back when did not include that the call takers were sworn officers. It's funny that I remember the size and orientation of the room, but don't remember that the call takers were sworn officers. I remember the location of the door we entered the room through. So yes it made quite an impression on me.
My wish is to now get a tour of the LAFD communications facility "OCD." Since leaving L.A. my interests have changed and listening to fire and natural resource agencies are my favorites. I've seen the old RCMA magazine pictures of OCD. I remember foundly some cold winter nights in New Mexico in the late 70's/early 80's when I would start hearing the LAFD as the skip traffic from the sunspot maximum of that time starting working its magic.
By the way I was one of those young males interested in meeting Shaaron. but my two friends and I had listened enough to know we weren't going to find her in Parker Center.
My wish is to now get a tour of the LAFD communications facility "OCD." Since leaving L.A. my interests have changed and listening to fire and natural resource agencies are my favorites. I've seen the old RCMA magazine pictures of OCD. I remember foundly some cold winter nights in New Mexico in the late 70's/early 80's when I would start hearing the LAFD as the skip traffic from the sunspot maximum of that time starting working its magic.
By the way I was one of those young males interested in meeting Shaaron. but my two friends and I had listened enough to know we weren't going to find her in Parker Center.
norcalbusa
Member
......
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KMA367
Member
Communications Division's Parker Center digs look quaint if not downright archaic by today's standards, but it worked effectively and effficiently back in those pre-computerized days. Technology changed so slowly back then that the setup there was essentialy identical to the one that they'd used in City Hall since LAPD first hit the airwaves in 1931, except for its size and the slow encroachment of more electrical and electronic doodads. In fact, the story I heard was that when Parker Center opened in 1955, they actually carrried the RTOs' old status boards over from City Hall and placed them around the "horseshoe" alongside the new but identical ones for the additional operators' positions.
As far as the Complaint Board goes, it was indeed staffed exclusively by Police Officers from the 1930s until 1981, except for a period during WWII beginning in January 1943 when they brought in civilian employees (mostly City Hall phone operators), as the department's sworn ranks were severely depleted by the many hundreds of officers who had gone into the service.
In 1980, LAPD was again suffering from a shortage of patrol officers, mainly because of tight budgets (sound familiar?). So the city and the department got together and created a new job classification of "Police Service Representative" to replace the former "RadioTelephone Operator" class. The PSRs would be trained to replace the well over 100 officers assigned to the Complaint Board, as well as in other spots. Besides freeing up the sworn personnel for patrol, the PSR position would finally give the RTOs a chance for some advancement within Communications as well as non-enforcement positions at patrol and other divisions. Prior to that, there were fewer than a dozen Senior RTOs, and if you wanted to promote you had to wait for years for one of them to either retire or die, and then compete for their spot. The PSR job had additional duties and opportunities, and better pay, so it also had higher hiring and training requirements. Nobody got "grandfathered" (grandmothered??) in, as even the veteran RTOs had to pass the new testing process in order to keep their jobs. They were given several chances to re-test during the year or two transition period, but those who didn't make it were either helped to find other spots with the city, or they just left entirely.
Coincidentally enough, my in-house technical advisor and later-LAPD-years historian (and wife) just reminded me that the first group of 200 new PSRs - including her - received their promotions exactly 30 years ago tomorrow, on January 25, 1981, the first day of 1981 Deployment Period #2, and began infiltrating the Complaint Board and other previously sworn-only jobs.
It took a couple years before enough new PSRs were on board to replace all the sworn officers, but the last statistics I've found, for 2009, show just two police officers deployed to Communications Division in some capacity, plus a pretty skimpy complement of just 5 Sgts, 5 Lts, and the Captain; that's for both Comm Centers combined. There were 579 PSRs and Senior PSRs and 18 clerical and admin employees in Communications, which is by far the largest division in LAPD. I say 'were" because they've lost a bunch of tenured people to the city's Early Retirement plan, trying to save the city some bucks. As far as I know, the very last of the former RTOs retired last March with 35+ years there, all of it as a "working" (not senior) RTO and PSR. She had been my student for a while when she was first hired, but she made it anyway.
I've gone entirely off-topic, so I'll stop here with this link to a few sights from the pre-1/11/1981 Complaint Board and Mic Room, which you'll probably find somewhat familiar: LAPD Complaint Board 1955-1983
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hose-reel
Member
Federal agency tend to not have "California compliant" lights. I am not sure for all the reasons for this. A few years back on one forest I worked for there was only 1 truck out of the probably 8 or 9 on the district that had a steady burning red light. I think part of this was that the lights were bought back in the 90's and just reinstalled on newer trucks to save money. That district was real fond of a federal light bar, can't think of which on it was. Anyways, I have noticed that alot of the newer equipment does have a steady red burning light, though not always. Another thing is at least on the fire side of things, most of the systems are set-up somewhere else and sent to California pre-programed, and not always the way you want them to be.
As someone else mentioned, they also still have an idiot switch, so you can turn everything on(lights and sirens) all at once.
As someone else mentioned, they also still have an idiot switch, so you can turn everything on(lights and sirens) all at once.
All emergency vehicles must have a sold red light facing forward.
EMS/Fire vehicles must also have a Red & Amber flashing lights to the rear..
Law Enforcement must also have Blue & Amber flashing lights to the rear..
EMS/Fire vehicles must also have a Red & Amber flashing lights to the rear..
Law Enforcement must also have Blue & Amber flashing lights to the rear..
KMA367
Member
Are those new California laws? What code/sections? Thanks.
The California Vehicle Code website doesn't seem to be working right now on my computer.. I don't remember off the top of my head, but I know it's there.. and has been for a long time now..
KMA367
Member
The official California "Leginfo" website is back up now, and the emergency vehicle "flashing and colored lights" stuff is in CVC Div 12, Chap 2, Article 7, in
CA Codes (veh:25250-25282)
The only mandatory ("shall") lighting reference I'm finding is the previously mentioned steady red to the front in §25252, "Every authorized emergency vehicle shall be equipped with at least one steady burning red warning lamp visible from at least 1,000 feet to the front of the vehicle to be used as provided in this code."
25252 then continues with the permissive ("may") provision for other red lights: "In addition, authorized emergency vehicles may display revolving, flashing, or steady red warning lights to the front, sides or rear of the vehicles."
Further down §25258. (b) is not mandatory but only permissive as to blue lights on peace officers' vehicles: "An authorized emergency vehicle used by a peace officer, as defined... <snip> ...in the performance of the peace officer's duties, may, in addition, display a steady or flashing blue warning light visible from the front, sides, or rear of the vehicle."
Amber lights for any emergency vehicle are then addressed in §25259. (a), again in permissive rather than mandatory terms, "Any authorized emergency vehicle may display flashing amber warning lights to the front, sides, or rear."
So unless I'm reading it wrong - entirely possible
- the only required emergency vehicle light is a front steady red. Flashing and amber lights (on the front, sides, or rear) are allowed on the specified emergency vehicles in the colors specified.
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