[quote name='FFPM571' post='140859' date='Aug 16 2007, 15:52 ']Its a tradition. It goes back to the early 1900's Commisioner Corrigan's family owned a steamship line. He adopted it to be the port and starboard sides of the appratus. Its only found on the officers side front of the equipment. Green rotating or stobe ligts on the roof of the vehicles here are command lights[/quote]
That’s pretty much consistent with what I had read, that a chief of the department had maritime interest. Also, some stations also had red and green lights on the front.
There is another tie in between maritime lighting and the fire service I found out about at a water safety training. When two boats cross paths, the boat on the right is the “stand on” vessel and should maintain its speed and course. The vessel tot eh left is the “give way” vessel and is responsible for avoiding the other vessel. At night, if you are on the stand on vessel you will see the green light on the right side of the other boat. If you are on the give way vessel, you will see a red light. From that came read and green traffic signals used on land. Also, since the following vehicle (or boat) must give way to the one ahead, tail lights on cars are red. The red warning lights on emergency vehicles are a signal to other vehicles to “give way,” i.e. yield right of way. Too bad so few drivers seem to understand that.
For a pic to go with all this text, below is another Chicago tradition, the joker stand.
Photo by Chuck Buschardt, scanned to disk by Ken Paradowski.
Joe
That’s pretty much consistent with what I had read, that a chief of the department had maritime interest. Also, some stations also had red and green lights on the front.
There is another tie in between maritime lighting and the fire service I found out about at a water safety training. When two boats cross paths, the boat on the right is the “stand on” vessel and should maintain its speed and course. The vessel tot eh left is the “give way” vessel and is responsible for avoiding the other vessel. At night, if you are on the stand on vessel you will see the green light on the right side of the other boat. If you are on the give way vessel, you will see a red light. From that came read and green traffic signals used on land. Also, since the following vehicle (or boat) must give way to the one ahead, tail lights on cars are red. The red warning lights on emergency vehicles are a signal to other vehicles to “give way,” i.e. yield right of way. Too bad so few drivers seem to understand that.
For a pic to go with all this text, below is another Chicago tradition, the joker stand.
Photo by Chuck Buschardt, scanned to disk by Ken Paradowski.
Joe
Facebook
Google
Reddit
Twitter