INVESTIGATING THEIR RESEARCH, $1.1 Mil, Virginia State Police Minor & Redundant Study Findings!

SEE FLORIDA HIGHWAY PATROL, EMERGENCY LIGHTING RESEARCH AND PROTOTYPE EVALUATION, 2004, JAMES WELLS JR.

VIRGINIA STATE POLICE PATROL VEHICLES 2023

Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University in partnership with
Travis Terry in pursuit of a Doctor of Philosophy In Industrial and Systems Engineering degree appears to have omitted or was not aware of previous research on the topic by the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) in 2004 regarding the effectiveness of multi colored warning lights as used on FHP patrol cars.

At the time of the first funding of this project the FHP lighting study was less than ten years old. Since 2013 and nearly ten years and over $1 Million dollars later, the awardees along with their partners at the Virginia State Police have realized red lights may be of some benefit for their agency. They agency has appeared to depart from the roof mounted lightbar resulting from this study which has conspicuity and enhanced performance properties by itself and will limit certain law enforcement vehicle adaptations the agency will later want to incorporate.

The situation in Virginia:
1) The VSP used Red Lights in the 1980's
2) The Florida Highway Patrol conducted agency research on the topic in 2004
3) Most of the nations emergency vehicles use red flashing lights, police, fire, ems in combination with other colors
4) Neither the "News", the School or the agency mentioned previously performed work on the topic during their press releases
5) "Virginia Tech’s research expenditures are up, in addition to an increase in sponsored awards by 15 percent, building upon the last fiscal year’s expenditure total of $542 million, despite the impact of COVID-19 felt nationally by higher education institutes, according to preliminary fiscal year end reports." 4 SEPT 2020
6) "Virginia Tech’s research expenditures have increased by 9 percent, approaching $600 million for fiscal year 2022, according to preliminary data."

Evaluating the Efficacy of Lighting, Markings, and Paint Schemes in Reducing the Incidence of Law Enforcement Vehicle Crashes

Awardee Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
Award # 2013-R2-CX-K004

Total funding (to date) $1,159,508