Well, another year down that was packed full of excitement. We will recap some of the highlights of 2008.

On 01/11 we covered the subject of Pet Ambulances. This stirred a few feathers and got us a legal threat from KARE, an organization that does what we covered.

On 01/25 we covered the saga of Donna Clark. As fan know, Donna or real name Fred sent us a few threatening emails and has continued to try to harass us elsewhere.

02/22 found us our first whacker subject for the year. A kid with a decked out pickup truck more than likely paid for by his parents.

The update from 03/07 got us a few hate mails as well. While some volunteer veterans thought it was appropriate, several inexperienced and younger volunteers took this update as a direct insult to them. Ohh well, we can’t keep everyone happy.

The WDF was explained in some detail on 04/14. Several questions spurred this update to explain the group we coined in detail.

Our token update dedicated to weather whackers was covered on 05/03. We received a few emails explaining how we were wrong but nothing more unlike last year.

Special update, legal notice on 05/09! More like Donna trying to sound legally smart while neglecting to use spell check or stay consistent through the letter.

Whackers in Disguise were covered on 06/09. This generated some hatred for the web site from the type of people we covered. It was a growing problem that needed a face for the public to see.

The fun wasn’t over yet on 06/15, Donna strikes again. This time spamming another site with legal threats along with us. Some pests just don’t go away.

Policeposers.com helped catch a person allegedly using lights illegally while disobeying traffic laws and bring them to justice. For the first time we were labeled as a “Watchdog Web site” by a media outlet on 06/27.

Scanner chasers were the topic on 07/11. After reading a few posts of scanner listeners running to calls to be one with the action, this article came to light.

08/09 saw our first article on the notorious sub-wannabe group, the Badge Bunny. This update made a few badge imprints on crying girls faces as they cried on the shoulder of their boyfriends.

On 08/09 our staff blog went public.

Greedy whacker enabling dealers were our focus for 09/13. This is a very controversial topic as dealers have to trade ethics with money.

10/10 got us a nice hate mail. A REACT member is mad at our stance and intends to make volunteer emergency personnel look dumb while trying to justify his need for lights. As normal, they made themselves look like an idiot and that amused us.

Demilling emergency vehicles was our focus on 11/09. This started a stir in a few forums and was general viewed upon negatively by wannabes in those forums.

Ghostbusters and other Sci-Fi enthusiast were confronted on 11/23. This topic was long overdue and covered the issue of sci-fi fans using legitimate lighting permits to play out their fantasy.

Overall this year was an interesting one. Our forums along with our site viewership grew several times more their respective numbers last year. We would like to thank you for a wonderful year and have a safe 2009.

Where reality meets fiction

A phenomenon our forums members have been viewing lately is the mixing of legitimate vehicle lighting permits with a hobby or interest. We don’t mean those have an interesting in lighting and have the privilege to use them. We mean those who get the privilege to use lights then use that privilege to outfit their personal vehicle to live a fantasy. Case in this article, Ghost Buster wannabes.

A member of our forum is a Ghost Buster fan and has even outfitted a vehicle to look like the original ECTO-1. He originally brought to our attention of people (mainly volunteer fire fighters and EMS members) who take advantage of their POV lighting privileges to make their vehicles look like ghost busting vehicles and still use emergency colored lights legally. While this isn’t a bad thing in itself, a lot of these “GB Whackers” start to blur the line on when and where their lights should be used and what they really have the lights for.

We have seen and have archived films of the GB whackers running lights and sirens on public roadways to cater to other GB fans. Most lighting permits only allow you to run your lights and/or sirens while to or from a pre-determined emergency. I doubt they have a “Show off you self titled GB replica” anywhere in the permit’s fine print. One of these GB whackers even went as far as to try to find the ECTO-1 siren to use while running to real emergencies. This is only taking into the account on cool it sounds to the GB fan and not any SAE or state level certifications and requirements required for running such equipment.

So what needs to be changed? Keep the ECTO-1 creations and volunteer response vehicles separate. Don’t turn the privilege of running lights and/or sirens on your personal vehicles into a mockery of a sci-fi fantasy. Like other lighting abuse, turning a serious tool (lights and sirens) into a toy as viewed by the public hurts their effectiveness for everyone else. If you join a volunteer department for the sole fact to get a lighting permit for your ECTO-1 copy, then maybe you should reconsider your choices as not to put any volunteers or other lives in danger.