All priority vehicles in emergency service must have blue lights like the police

All priority vehicles in emergency services, such as fire fighting, health care and civil protection-rescue, must now carry blue lights as currently happens with police vehicles.

As reported by the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT), this is stated in a Ministerial Order published this Tuesday in the BOE, which modifies several annexes of the General Vehicle Regulations, among which is annex XI, in relation to signal V-1 (Priority Vehicle). However, to get the best one choose from police lights for sale.

Until the publication of this reform, the blue luminous device was restricted to the exclusive use of police vehicles, while the rest of the priority vehicles had yellow car lights. This yellow auto luminous device is also carried by slow vehicles, which are those that constitute an obstacle on the road because they are stopped or parked or circulate at low speed while they are performing a service or work on the road.

This situation generated some confusion among the rest of the road users by not clearly identifying that fire fighting, health care and civil protection-rescue vehicles were priority vehicles in emergency service that also have right of way.

With this change, a historical claim of the associations and bodies of the Public Administrations related to emergency services vehicles, as well as the Ombudsman and the Congress of Deputies, is materialized, which through several non-law proposals, They have asked the Government to unify the color of the lighting devices of priority vehicles so that in all cases it is blue.

In addition, with this measure Spain is equated with the existing regulations in most of the States of the European Union, in which the luminous device of priority vehicles is blue, as in France and Portugal, countries where it It is common for priority vehicles from Spain to enter these countries in emergency situations and vice versa.

With the aim that this change can be made progressively, the Ministerial Order grants a period of two years for the owners of the affected vehicles to change the yellow color of their luminous devices to blue.

MORE CHANGES

The Ministerial Order includes other changes. From now on, self-taxis and rental vehicles with a driver with up to nine seats must carry the rear registration plate with a blue background and with the characters in white. The front plate will remain white and the characters black. Holders of vehicles registered prior to the entry into force of this order will have a period of one year to change the current rear registration plate for the blue one.

Likewise, the General Vehicle Regulation incorporates in its annex II the definition of Shared Use Vehicle, a vehicle intended for rental without a driver that is dedicated to a concatenated and intensive use by an undetermined number of users within a delimited service area. It must be available, at any time, to be used through the use of mobile applications.

According to the DGT, "the shared-use vehicle is a complement to urban public transport systems, providing it with added capillarity, also introducing greater efficiency in the use of the vehicle, reducing traffic congestion, road occupation public and polluting emissions ". In addition, the distinctive V-26 (Distinctive of shared use) is established, which will allow Public Administrations to identify this type of vehicle and adopt measures that favor its use as an alternative to the vehicle for private use and urban public transport.

Likewise, the definition of pick-up vehicles is introduced in the General Vehicle Regulations: vehicle whose maximum mass is not greater than 3,500 kilos, in which the seating positions and the cargo area are not located in a single compartment. These vehicles, which until now had been classified as a truck-type vehicle, are characterized, for the most part, by having the part destined for merchandise separated from the cabin and, normally, in the open.