Wondered what the strange alarm was rapidly approaching today and it was a pimped up blacked out BMW with a different siren than a normal police car.

Felt a bit like a ten year old thinking “police man! CoooolCooool”.

Doubt it was CID

All police cars have two or more tone sirens – hence blues and twos. The wail, the welp (or yelp), and then maybe also the phaser or the French sounding one. The reason is so you can change between them to further attract peoples attention – perhaps as you approach a roundabout or are stuck behind an idiot – and so that you can use different sounds when travelling in convoy, to reduce the chances of people who have kindly slowed or pulled over for the first car pulling back out right in front of the second one. And if it was a BMW it was either traffic or a boss. (Or possibly even a senior fire brigade person).

Disappointed.

I was expecting a punch line.

And I’d always assumed it was “twos” just because it rhymed 🙂 Every day’s a school day…

I always thought “twos” was nee and naw

(and the extra tones are code for what sort of donuts you want to order before you arrive, innit greatape ?? 😀 )

We have 5 different ones on the wagon at work 🙂

firestarter – Member

We have 5 different ones on the wagon at work

If one of them’s not Dixie, you’re doing it wrong

😉

blues and twos refers to blue lights, two tones. From the good old days when we had our own distinctive single type of two tone siren.

That’s what I always thought, and wikipedia seems to agree.

I miss the good old days before they were directional, never fun having to do an emergency stop to avoid an oncoming unmarked car at full tilt that’s just pulled off a roundabout and went straight for an overtake 🙁

I thought part of the reason behind this is that a normal siren will have people looking for a marked car, using a different sound means their attention will be more focused, seems to have worked for you OP.

Or maybe they are attention seekers just showing off.

and what’s the score when you see a pimped out unmarked 5 series with 4 uniformed coppers in it? You see a few of those round my way. I always want to knock on the window and say “chaps, you know those getups kind of spoil the disguise a bit?”

but given that they’re invariably parked about 30 yds from one of bristol’s drug dealing hotspots i generally figure they’ve got better things to be thinking about 😐

4 occupants? Driver training would be my guess.

blues and twos refers to blue lights, two tones. From the good old days when we had our own distinctive single type of two tone siren.

That’s what I always thought, and wikipedia seems to agree.

You’re right, my mistake! I’m so young that I don’t predate the ones with a choice of siren noises 🙂

oh. that’s a bit less exciting than i was expecting!

Just my best guess, but if it was unmarked and doing operational policing that wasn’t traffic stuff, they’d probably be in plain clothes, and an operational unmarked traffic car would only have two in it.

blues and twos refers to blue lights, two tones. From the good old days when we had our own distinctive single type of two tone siren

Yup it’s from emergency vehicles had 2 tone horns. No need for Wiki I drove them with 2 tones. 😕

When we are out on a 2 pump call out each pump uses different tone ( hew haw, yelp, nee naw, hi lo etc) so that you know there is more than one of us. Yet still some people don’t hear or see us.

From the good old days when we had our own distinctive single type of two tone siren.

In the good ol’ days it was a simple bell, as many an Ealing Comedy will testify. The two-tone siren was an idea imported from the Continent.

Yet still some people don’t hear or see us.

Paintball gun? So that you can see them more easily.

bruneep – Member

When we are out on a 2 pump call out each pump uses different tone ( hew haw, yelp, nee naw, hi lo etc

Are these the official names? Please tell me it says “nee naw” and “hew haw” on the control dial.

Drac you’ll note from this picture that ambulance crews were expected to keep their bell end polished.

A practice we still adhere to.