Thinkgood:
Ohhh that is a VERY familiar sound here.
Of course, the recording you mention is actually a police car toggling its siren to get through traffic and sneak through red lights (usually when not on call
) or when they signal a driver on a local street to pull over -- they usually sneak up on you and toot the siren a couple of times and flash the lights. That means, "pull over, you've commited some kind of infraction"
Seems like the regular horn and the siren are an all-in one unit in the NYPD cars, so when they need to use the horn, they just toggle the siren on and off. Silly system....
The actual siren blasting at full throttle when a unit is responding to a call is VERY vicious sounding. The car is rolling down the street at 40 miles an hour and blasting this WHEEE _OHHHH WHEEEE OHHHH WHEEEE OOHHH and all lights going.
The NYFD trucks actually use both sirens and air horns (like the ones on trains and trucks) at the same time, you think it's a train barreling through the street. I think even a deaf guy can hear that monster and jump out of the way in time!!
I've actually, from time to time heard some cars with "hi lo" sirens. Don't know if they're ambulances or some type of police cars (with different siren sounds).
P.S.: I prefer when our police cars were all blue with white stripes and a white top. I don't like this white with a few blue stripes. Makes it look cheap. In fact, it probably is cheaper, since it's a stock white color and then they just apply these blue stick-on stripes.
[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 09-25-2003).]