Should Garda Cars have full Battenburg Markings?

Hogzy

Does anyone think that Garda cars/vans etc should all have a complete set of battenburg markings like they do in the UK and the traffic Corps.
I find it gives the car alot more presence and it is ALOT more visible.

What would the cost be?

Terrontress

To be honest, of a standard Battenburg scheme, I think it is the rear chevrons that are most important, which all marked Garda cars have. Garda cars are rarely perpendicular to the road.

Not all UK cars have Battenburg, Metropolitan Police in London only have it on the traffic corps. Manchester Police don't have it either. Surely between the two of them that must be a serious percentage of UK Police forces.

Some forces seem to go overkill with it.

Terrontress

By the way, I heard on the radio a while ago that NI's police livery came from when the RUC were still in force. The change to the PSNI was likely to be announced but was not yet official. New cars were ordered and the procurement people did not want to have them painted with an RUC crest and have to change it so they just did Battenburg and nothing else on the sides and chevrons on the rear.

When the new PSNI came in, they put the crest on the rearmost side window of the estate cars and on the bonnet of other vehicles.

It is amazing what you learn listening to Stephen Nolan.

deadwood

Terrontress wrote: »

Garda cars are rarely perpendicular to the road.

Personally, I try to keep parallel to the road.





Hmmmm. battenburg.

Won't make a difference. People still claim they didn't see us.

deadwood

foreign wrote: »

Won't make a difference. People still claim they didn't see us.

Who said that?!

Hogzy

deadwood wrote: »

Who said that?!

Some foreign fella

Irish_polizei

Its about money again no doubt... battenburg material cant be cheap, and id say they dont want to change the symbolic stripe down the side of the car..unlevel and all as it is!

Delancey

I wouldn't have thought a full set of Battenburg markings would be more than a couple of hundred euro ?

Rockery Woman

Battenburg markings - should be yellow and pink - then we would all go and lick the squad cars!!!;)

mathepac

Why is it necessary for us to slavishly copy everything the Brits do, whether thers is value in it or not?

Is there any research that indicates that battenburg (or any other markings) are better / safer / more visible than alternatives in places like Germany or Australia?

If the markings on Brit emergency vehicles is such hot stuff from a visibility / safety point of view, then why don't their tabards / high-vis clothing replicate this pattern?

eroo

Think it's fine the way it is. Battenburg is handy for distinguishing traffic units, RSU etc

Also, Ambulance cars and jeeps have battenburg so Garda cars the way they are now are more identifiable imo.

Terrontress

deadwood wrote: »

Personally, I try to keep parallel to the road.

exactly. Hence my point about the rear chevrons being most important. Which marked AGS vehicles do.

Terrontress

mathepac wrote: »

Why is it necessary for us to slavishly copy everything the Brits do, whether thers is value in it or not?

Is there any research that indicates that battenburg (or any other markings) are better / safer / more visible than alternatives in places like Germany or Australia?

If the markings on Brit emergency vehicles is such hot stuff from a visibility / safety point of view, then why don't their tabards / high-vis clothing replicate this pattern?

as I have already said, The Met and Manchester Police, the first and third largest UK Police forces respectively, have a similar policy with regards to Battenburg as AGS do.

AGS putting Battenburg on all vehicles would not be following Brits slavishly.

Tango Alpha 51

There is some EU directive on battenburg for ES vehicles out there (trying to find it). Basically it stated that any ES vehicle responding to a call on a motorway should have battenburg & they stated that it should be blue/yellow for police, green/yellow for ambulance & red/yellow for Fire, hence 99.9% of the new fire appliances now have battenburg.

Garda vehicles responding to motorway/dual carriageway incidents & doing fend off would ideally have battenburg but bearing in mind the stuff isn't cheap.

Most of the battenburg the general public sees on ES vehicles is Diamondgrade reflective & is very expensive (roughly 50euro a square meter) which adds up to quite abit when covering a vehicle as opposed to the single stripe which is way cheaper.

You can get an alternative to the Diamondgrade but it's not nearly as reflective & fades very quickly.

belacqua_

buzzman wrote: »

There is some EU directive on battenburg for ES vehicles out there (trying to find it). Basically it stated that any ES vehicle responding to a call on a motorway should have battenburg & they stated that it should be blue/yellow for police, green/yellow for ambulance & red/yellow for Fire ...

That sounds very vague and I'm reluctant to believe it, as I can't think of one mainland European emergency service that follow this directive (I'm open to correction, but aren't we -- the UK and Ireland -- the only countries to adopt the liveries you describe?).

The UK were the first to introduce these specific types of livery on their police, ambulance and fire vehicles and they're usually the last country to follow some, let's be frank, supposed arbitrary and incidental directive. And to be fair to the UK they're not alone -- look at how most European countries dragged their heals and continue to drag their heals on implementing the standardised Euro number plate (Belgium, I'm looking at you).

The argument made when we switched from predominantly blue cars (with the exception of Traffic) to white in the early 90s, was that it would standardise the colours of police cars across Europe, except half of Europe didn't bother playing along. Feeling a bit nostalgic for the old blues now. Whether we like it or not, we're following the UK's lead on our liveries and it has very little to do with the EU. Just on the old RUC livery, it was (like most of the pre-battenburg police liveries in the UK) pretty much identical to the standard Garda livery. I'd imagine the switch to battenburg up there was hastened by our switch from blue to white vehicles. Though, admittedly, at that time marked RUC vehicles (with the exception of the green/grey Land Rovers as they were then) were thin on the ground, the only example I ever saw was a marked up jeep that did the rounds in Portstewart/Portrush. Oh, and during the 'normalisation of policing' unmarked cars were uniformed up, so to speak, so it is quite normal to see red, blue and black cars kitted out in varying forms of police livery.

belacqua_

For anyone interested in the history and implementation of the battenburg marking scheme, developed by the UK's Police Scientific Development Board (now the Home office Scientific Development Board) and ICE Ergonomics:

http://theheap.net/files/14-04-high-conspicuity-livery.pdf

http://theheap.net/files/2-98-specification-for-livery.pdf

It's worth pointing out here that it is the 'full' battenburg marking scheme (formerly in use with the Traffic Corps, now in use with the RSUs) which is recommended for use on vehicles intended mainly for motorways and trunk roads and that the 'half' battenburg livery now favoured by AGS Traffic Corps is only used on vehicles to reinforce the corporate identity of the battenburg scheme (corporacy!), in effect nullifying the supposed benefits of the 'high conspicuity' livery (note the shift to marketing terminology in the second report) of the original battenburg scheme.

I've found no reference to EU directives on this, but I'm not dismissing out of hand that one exists; the only country, it would seem, that is actively preparing legislation for the specific and restricted use of these liveries solely by Police, Ambulance, Fire (and other emergency and non-emergency agencies, VOSA and the Highways Agency) was the UK:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/closed/regulationsamendments/annexd.pdf

Rialtas

belacqua_ wrote: »

That sounds very vague and I'm reluctant to believe it, as I can't think of one mainland European emergency service that follow this directive (I'm open to correction, but aren't we -- the UK and Ireland -- the only countries to adopt the liveries you describe?).

The Swedish use a version of it. Not sure how effective it is though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Swedish_patrol_car_new_livery.JPG

Interesting to note that Leicestershire Constabulary, Matt Baggott's old force, don't seem to use the battenburg livery much, opting instead for a Met style jam sandwich.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31281727@N08/3487629613/in/photostream/

I wonder is there a possibility the PSNI might get a new "corporate image" under his tenure?

Zambia

If they need to be seen they can turn on the flashy light thingys.

Garda cars look fine.

Manic Moran

Zambia232 wrote: »

If they need to be seen they can turn on the flashy light thingys.

Garda cars look fine.

That's my thinking as well. US police cars are plenty visible, and they come in all sorts of colours, (and lack of colours). They come absolutely festooned with lights; blue, red, yellow, white... The biggest problem they have is that they attract so much attention that occasionally drunk drivers will be 'drawn to the light' and hit them, there has been some thought put into exactly what sort of sequence the lights should be in in order to prevent that effect.

NTM