BlueBrixx Seagrave Aerial Scope Red/Black Set 102728

BlueBrixx's Seagrave Aerial Scope in red and black is a BlueBrixx-Specials model built from 781 blocks, measuring 36 × 7.5 × 14 cm assembled, with an extending boom and rotating components. No stickers or printed parts. Age 14+. Instructions are supplied as a free download after registering.

Fire engines are not red for a good reason

Red is traditional, universal, and close to the worst colour you could choose.

The human eye loses red first in poor light. At dusk, at night and in rain — which is when fire appliances do much of their work — the cones that see red stop contributing and a red vehicle reads as dark grey. Research in the 1970s and after, including a long study of accident rates in Dallas, found lime-yellow appliances were involved in markedly fewer collisions than red ones.

The evidence has been public for fifty years, and most fire services are still red. Some went lime-yellow and quietly changed back, because the public does not recognise a lime-yellow vehicle as a fire engine and because a fleet is a source of civic pride that nobody wants to argue about.

The compromise everyone arrived at instead is retroreflective striping — the chevrons on the back of every modern appliance — which does the visibility work without touching the colour. This appliance's red and black scheme is one of several variants the same design has worn.

The Aerial Scope

A telescoping boom with a platform on the end rather than a ladder to climb. It lifts several firefighters, their equipment, a water monitor and a casualty who cannot climb down — which is the thing a ladder cannot do.

In the BlueBrixx range

Set 102727 is the same appliance in the red and white of the Fire Department of New York.

Specifications

Pieces: 781 · Series: BlueBrixx-Specials · Age: 14+ · Extending boom and rotating parts · No stickers
Model dimensions: 36 × 7.5 × 14 cm (14.2 × 3.0 × 5.5 in)