Emergency Ligthing for Ecto Replicas

Equipment Ectomobiles
1

I am fairly new to the forum, but I have noticed often in Ectomobile threads there are questions about the overhead lighting needed for the replicas. As a police officer, I thought I may be able to shed some light on the situtation.

First off I am a police officer in Missouri, so you should check your local laws and take my suggestion as guidence, not legal advice. Lightbars are available in many styles, types, and prices ranging from less that $100 to several $1000s for led technology. Used equipment is commonly found on ebay and sites like Wiseguy’s Used Emergency Equipment.

Lightbars are not illegal, althought there are color restictions. Normally, red/blue are restricted to police, fire, & ems; red alone to police, blue alone to volunteer firefighters. There are four none restricted colors: amber, clear, purple, and green. Amber and Clear are generic warning colors, purple is used to denote private funeral vehicles (hearses), and green is used by private security.

You can openly buy any of the above listed colors from most new and used emergency supply sites or cataloges. And most places you can even have the restricted colors on a vehicle not intended for emergency use so long as you do not activate the lights while traveling on a public throughfare (ie the hobby of replica and restored police vehicles). Some states do require a vehicle not intended for emergency use but bearing a restricted colored light to have the light covered with a shroud emblazed with “Out of Service” while traveling on the road.

Also keep in mind, depending on the officer you encounter, you can be stopped and cited for operating a motor vehicle bearing the unrestricted colors if the lights are activated while the vehicle is motion on a street or highway. Most people don’t know that they can be ticketed for using their horn if there is no emergency. So gos for unrestricted caution lighting.

Mostly though, a reasonable officer will look the other way in the cases of unrestricted lighting colors and focus on something more inportant, so long as the you are acting a responsiable and sane manner.

Thanks for your time and if you have any questions for me feel free to post below and do my best to answer them.

2

Green is illegal in Colorado as it is used for emergency command vehicles. Purple tends to be classified as funeral or forest fire patrol(not used nice the 60s-70s), but this color restriction has since been “retired”.

Most color and use laws are terribly vague, falling under a large umbrella of “for authorized use only” which excludes any utility or emergency vehicle.

We currently have a pair of 36" amber lights mounted on our ecto. When we started off I talked to nearly four dozen police officers and state troopers, and the answers we got when we told them about the project and our intended ideas was that so long as we were not impersonating police officers or emergency services, and as long as we were not pulling people over, we’d be fine. On our own we decided a set of rules that we would follow, including never running the lights while we were behind anyone, never running the lights while anyone was coming towards us, not running the lights on public roads at night, and only running the lights if we were travelling below the speed limit.

This went smoothly for a little less than a month, we even had cops pull us over to take pictures of the car and just talk about the project, tons of fun. But less than a month later we encountered officers who were less than amused. We can’t blame them, their main reason for doing what they did was to uphold the law. Granted, it was a slightly silly law that we didn’t believe applied to us, but our elected officials agreed it was a good law.

Anyway, at this point we were told never to run the lights on while the car was on public streets.

We complied.

A little while later we were reprimanded for running the lights while the car was in motion in on city-owned streets.

We complied.

Soon we were confined to running the lights while puttering around mall parking lots and in front of grocery stores or places like Best Buy.

We were finally reprimanded a third time by an off-duty police officer while pulling up to Cartoys. I had switched the lights on for (hopefully) the bemusement of the staff of CarToys while pulling into their empty parking lot (tiny little lot, too, inside a larger supermarket lot). The officer was inside and got up on us. Told us that we were only technically authorized to run the lights for a special event, while the car was off and on private property.

At this point I was getting frustrated, especially since I only went with building the car because we had been told by so many authorities that we’d be fine running the lights whenever, so long as we weren’t bothering anyone.

I’ve recently decided to start lobbying for a special permit or city exception (which will be damn near impossible because it’s a STATE law). The way we approach this law is that we are bending the rules, but unlike so many citizens, we are not bending the rules in order to take advantage of or harm other people. Luckily my friends and I have become enough of a local celebrity phenomenon that we may have some pull in this..

It really is a thin line you have to balance while having an ecto with lightbars on it. To be responsible enough not to run the lights while you’re late for work, or to try to freak someone out, to just use common sense and realize that you could be mistaken for something very serious (by the very few people who don’t know of ghostbusters).

Personally, I am the only person I trust with the task of choosing when to run the lights, because I do not want the penalties of doing the wrong thing to fall upon anyone else.

3

Boomerjinks is right. I only meant my remarks to be a guide. The personalities of cops are as varied as anyone in the general public. I simply went by what I know to be true and the attitude I have from my years in law enforcement.

In Federal Incident Command System (ICS), a green beacon light does mark the local of the operations command post. In Missouri, though, it was decided not to restrict the color for this purpose alone due the its wide use in the security field.

Be sure to check local laws and talk with local authorities before taking any action, because it will be you paying the fine if your wrong.

Thanks for the reply. Hopefully we can examine the various law and ordinances of the states to get a more complete understanding of this area.

4

No worries, I was just adding my experience to the compendeum of knowledge.

Basically, understanding of police impersonation laws is realizing that they are blanket protection. The protect the lowest-common denominator of citizens, people that cannot distinguish a white wagon with satellite dishes and tubes and various gadgets on top from a clearly-marked official vehicle.

The Lacey Law, that which prevents red and blue lights, or the impersonation of an official vehicle, I am all for that.

But for the most part what we have encountered is a violent urge to protect the public at large from us, kids who are not impersonating law enforcement, but impersonating ghostbusters. To me, this law is just like the warning label on hair dryers that say not to use it while IN the shower.

I really would be fine with the laws if there were a permit or exception that could be obtained for certain vehicles. But oh well.

5

Sorry you can’t get a permit. I know few states, like Kansas,issue permits and variances for “promotional and theatrical vehicles” though the Dept. of Revenue. I

I learned this from a custom car shop owner in Kansas City, KS who operated “Ghostblasters” and a “Back from the Future” (notice his attempt to avoid copyright infringment) replica vehicles and rented them for special occation.

6

Ghostblasters… wasn’t that the ecto that was a dragster?

image
image541×253 37 KB

Colorado may have a similar loophole for me, I’ll have to do more research.

Coincidentally, the time machine is next on the dockett for conversion by me and my friends ^.^

7

Does anyone know where, exactly, to find these laws permitting to “emergency light bars” and the like? I’ve done some searching via the internet, but I can’t find anything concrete. Help, anyone?

8

As far as I know, they don’t exist. I am going to have to create and promote it within the city government from scratch :frowning:

9

Look in your State Statute.

It defines what the law is in your state specifically. Lets all find our own and post it up..

10

In otherwords.. You really can’t have anything. You could do an amber colored light but only if you have a service vehicle, and are not running them on the Highway.

11

I’ve spoken with many Joliet cops. We’ve driven through Joliet with the lights on, but being amber most people pay no mind, the only exception was on halloween night we were making a left turn and all of oncoming traffic stopped. Where I work the Joliet officers are often coming for different odds and ends, and so I always talk to them, and make sure they know the friendly radioshack guy’s also a ghostbuster and they know who’s car it is, as I often point to the Ecto. Several have said that if I call traffic department, I should be able to get a city permit for driving with the lights (and possibly the siren) for making our GBJS film, as long as they are informed of days we are filming, and I always tell them it should only take a couple weeks of filming the car, maximum. Joliet cops are actually pretty lenient on everything, including lisence plate frames, and ground effects, however, all the surrounding downs officers are dicks. Sorry, had to say it. Though I was surprised on the weekend before halloween, I thought some Pekin cops were gonna pull me over, and thought that all the times before I visited with the lightbar on, but the weekend of, I was speaking with one cop who said the car was fine sitting on the road with the lights on, or driving with them off (I think that’s what he said) because they were amber. I was expecting a pull-over because the pekin police hate any bulb and I mean ANY bulb that isn’t stock on a car.

Ladies and gentlemen, my long-winded speech :lol:

12

Illinois

Do note that Illinios is clear that “unlighted or lighted” makes no difference, they can’t legally be mounted unless you meet the requirements set forth under the code…

13

Yeah I read those codes in a lawbook a few months ago. I look at it this way; I’ll put a tow-hitch under her ass, and say she’s a towtruck. :lol: But so far have had no trouble, in fact even when I’m speeding the Joliet boys don’t bother me. We have become pretty well known in our home town.

14

Yeah, just because the law says so, doesn’t mean it’s always enforced…

But, on the flip side when and if you get popped oh well…

I have found most Illiniois police will ignore the amber lights, but not all… I know a few landscapers who have been hassled when pulled over for a “safety check” still having the amber light bar on the pickup truck after plow season…

15

I’ll keep that in mind. Though most people believe you when you say you’re the real deal, so I could always tell the police that if they give me a ticket now and get into trouble with spirits, they’re s.o.l. :lol:

16

Sad part is, that label is probably on there cause someone did do that. And that ecto dragster is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.