Please Note. We don't sell light bars from this website. If you are looking to buy emergency vehicle warning lights, the following site comes highly recommended.

Vehicle Warning Lights at CHIEF

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First some history

Lightbars are devices designed to make an official vehicle easily identifiable. They are fitted to nearly every emergency vehicle and most utility vehicles for the purpose of alerting other vehicles and pedestrians of emergency situations or other road hazards

Originally the only warning lights available were static directional or flashing lamps. As technology advanced, it gave birth to the rotating beacon, in which a mirror or reflector revolved around a stationary light bulb. These beacons provided an excellent warning device

Just as the introduction of the single beacon was a great leap forward in vehicle visual warning devices, the practice of using multiple beacons (and thus multiple colours) was a natural progression. In order to utilize two single beacons it became necessary to install a bar across the roof to establish a level platform, and then attach the beacons to this bar, often with a siren speaker and/or "lollipop" lights between the beacons. This was the origin of the term "light bar".

The 1960s saw the introduction of the earliest of these and they would have been built to individual requirements by the agency using them. The companies manufacturing these beacons quickly caught on to this and began to produce their own custom lightbars as off the shelf units.

The obvious progression was to integrate all of the components into a single unit. The coloured dome over the beacon was extended towards the center of the unit to accommodate stationary solid or flashing lights, and mirrors to enhance the flash pattern of the lightbar. A siren was usually installed in the middle to separate the two lenses and this resulted in the first true light bar design. One of the earliest of these designs was the “Twinsonic” manufactured by the American company Federal Signal Corporation.

Today's modern designs combine various devices for mission specific applications. These elements may include: halogen/incandescent rotating lights with or without mirrors, strobe lights, LED panels, two-tiered (above/below) lights, fixed-beam "takedown" flashing lights, side-facing "alley" spotlights, directional traffic advisory arrows, siren speakers, and more. Several manufacturers have incorporated programmable flash patterns into their products. Some lightbars are specialized to meet individual specifications of the agency using them.

The modern trend of locating sirens and other audible warning devices at the front of emergency vehicles has also resulted in almost all lightbar models being offered in an "all-light" configuration, with continuous lighting options available across the entire width of the lightbar.

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