Fire Engine: Red or Yellowish?

I was watching the news this morning and there was a fire in Miami. The Fire Engine that responded was the yellowish- green color kind. It got me thinking- why are some fire engines that funny neither yellow or green color when everyone knows fire engines to be red? That is the traditional color, red I mean. Even back in the day when they were drawn by horses and had a hand pump system for dispensing water they were red. Trust me- I looked it up. So why then are some of the engines yellowish green?

I thought I should ask someone who knew, so I asked Tyler. For those of you who don't know, Tyler wants to be a fireman someday, and he knows everything- start calling him a super-genius, he'd get a kick out of that. He had a lame answer though- he said it is different counties get to pick what color their engines were. So different counties have different colors. While I appreciated the effort- that was definitely not the answer I was looking for. I mean- who thought that yellow-ey color would be good anyway? And since traditionally they had been red, how did someone get anyone to follow them away from tradition?

So I went to the next best source for answers next to Tyler, ask Jeeves at www.ask.com. You type in a question and he gives you an answer- its just super. Well it turns out that lime-yellow fire engines are less likely to be involved in a visibility related auto-accidents. Here is a quote from the article, "If other factors are the same, the probability of a visibility-related accident for a red or red/white pumper is greater than the probability for a lime-yellow/white pumper. . . Lime-yellow/white fire pumpers are significantly statistically safer than red and red/white fire pumpers." In other words, they are safer for other drivers on the road. You can read the article if you like here: http://www.usroads.com/journals/aruj/9702/ru970203.htm

It is still up to the counties and cities to purchase their own vehicles so that is why not all fire engines have switched to the lime- yellow color, some stick with tradition.

And in his defense, Tyler's answer wasn't wrong, the counties do pick the colors- he just didn't know why.

Who thought this blog would turn out to be educational?