The German, Dutch, Belgian and Austrian emergency vehicles mostly still use a real horn. The advantage is that the sound is unmistakable and cannot be confused with other noises such as alarm systems, etc. There is also less environmental noise that can overwhelm the sound. Another advantage of a real horn is that it is primarily aimed in the desired direction (direction of travel) and does not pointlessly fill the area with sound. Thanks to the consistent tone, the vehicle can also be located better by road users, the direction and speed can be estimated.

In netherlands emergency vehicles only use sirens when they need them as well. You see them often driving just with lights on when it is dark. Only turning sound on when aproaching busy intersections and stuff. Cuts down masivly on sound polution.

In the Netherlands we have three different sounds for Police, Fire car and ambulance.. For me that does not matter, because when I am driving on the road, I know I have to act immediately just to let them pass through.. The sounds always makes me creaps out as a driver.. But I really think it is NECESSARY to let them go through one side or another. Thanks for sharing. ❤

One thing in EU is the color of the flash lights of all emergency vehicles (police, ambulance and fire dept.). The color is bright blue. That is a very good thing compared to white, orange or even red flash lights. Bright blue is very visible in a bright day or totally dark night. All other colors just disappear in the surrounding lights. Many times it is difficult to figure out from the sirens where the emergency cars are coming from, but bright blue flash can be seen from very far away. In EU orange flash lights are used in all type of service vehicles wheter they are used to mainrain the roads or being a vehicle of some person maintaing something else. Also very slow vrhicles like tractors use orange flash lights. White and red are not used except the police uses one red light on the roof of the car when they order another car to stop immediately. It is not flashing but it is like a very bright red high beam.

Random Fact; The siren that we know as the "emergency service siren" was created by John Robison in 1799 in scotland and it has been adapated all around the world.

the horns used in germany belgian netherlands austria ... are very easy to locate for a driver as well as you can hear dirctly if it is coming at you, going side ways to ur location or going away from you because it sounds distinctly different. you can also estimate the distance it is away from you very easy, while at the same time the sound doesnt go to much to the sides and back so its less noise polution for the rest of the city.

In South Korea, ambulances turn on a siren in real emergency cases. No siren means no emergency.

11:50 The "Martin's Horn" (siren), invented in Germany, is still used in Germany in Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Lichtenstein! New York may soon be added to the mix. The shrill sound of police sirens gets on New York's nerves. A Europeanization is needed. The constant howling could soon be followed by the "Tatü-Tata" known in Germany.

Italy was missing. The fire department there also has a distinctive siren. And the police always look perfect, their uniform flawless and their hairstyle and sunglasses always on point.

Here in Hong Kong people don't really care about giving ways to emergency vehicles, even padastrians, that's why in the video you see that thee ambulance has to wait for a period of time before crossing.

15:54 A semi-compact van is optimally designed to manoeuvre traffic and deal with narrower roads.

Interesting to see that Vietnam uses both Euro- and US-style fire trucks, that's the first time I've ever seen both types in one place And regarding the one you said was dead quiet, it was probably going through a resedential area at night, at least here in Europe, emergency vehicles will usally run lights only, no sirens when going trhough residential areas at night, unless they absolutely have to run the sirens, they don't want to wake everyone up if not nescessary! Kinda funny to see your reaction to a Mercedes fire truck, you might only be familiar with their road cars and race cars, but Mercedes either makes or at least has made pretty much anything with a minimum of four wheels and an engine, tractors, semi trucks etc....

You Must Look : Feuer und Flamme . It‘s a Doku Serie over the German Fire Department 🇩🇪🚒

I am lucky living in the Netherlands how us people should react in traffic when emergency with alarm want to pass. In the Netherlands,if we don NOT react as we MUST do, the police can come around and you have to pay a lot of money...!! Just like it should have been alk around the world..!! That is my opinion... have a nice day...❤

There are normally red lights either side of fire stations in the UK, that require you to make an emergency stop when they flash - and to remain stationary until they stop flashing! This allows for the unimpeeded egress of fire engines from their stations. Those ambulance cars and motorcycles in Edinburgh carry senior paramedics to top-level emergencies, either as an advance party, or where assistance is required. In London, the Metropolitan Police have a river unit, with a number of boats of various types, based and working upon the River Thames.

impressed by the surfboard strapped to the firetruck ladder in Honolulu 😂

6:39 NOT THE SCOOBY DOO VANS 💀

Elantra is the North American name for Avante. There was a car produced under the name of Elantra but was discontinued in South Korea.

10:40 avante(in Korea) = elantra(other country)

As a dutch, i have been wondering for quitte some years, what would happen in the busy USA, India and Chinees city's if they would use the German Belgian or Dutch horn and sound system, I once had an MICU Ambulance behind me(also nice to check for youtube movies btw) and i could not stay in front of it. For me the main differnece is the sound of pressure to move out of the way compared with a stressed out nervous sound that is asking attention but is not directly motivating me to move.

As a german it amazes me how slow emergency vehicles are in some countries even when the traffic is minimal. They just move at regular speed. 😮

What you saw at 5:17 areound was the Special Police Forces the MEK Mobiles Einsatz Komando (Mobile Task Force) but could've also been the SEK Spezial Einsatz Komando (Special Task Force) Wich atleast in Hamburg is the Same

3:15 The fire brigade in Abu Dhabi, for example, is trained by German firefighters. There was a report about it once. A long time ago. Title: Feuerwehr Abu Dhabi: Brandschutz "made in germany" | SPIEGEL TV 7:14 In our harbour, we occasionally see foreign rescue vehicles and fire engines. They are delivered from Germany to their country of destination. If I saw it correctly, the Vietnamese fire engine was from MAN. This is a German vehicle.

Cuba has old vehicles from Castro's Rule when he decreed that no new cars would be imported, so there remain only well cared for historic US cars from the 1950s and early 1960s

In Sweden they have a mix of Scottish siren first and then German horn ;-)

13:49 putting the ladder on top like that is also quite commen in germany

I know in some countries policecars drive with flashlights by default. They even keep flashing when they are parked on an intersection while there is NO emergency, just to "let people feel they are being watched, so they behave". Many times there is just a car with flashlights there without an officer... If you (ab)use your emergency vehicle signals like that, the signals lose their significance. How do you expect people to know the difference between an emergency where they need to make way and a vehicle just rudely begging at everybody to be seen by using flashlights as christmas decoration

Emergency vehicle in the Netherlands have Traffic signal preemption (also called traffic signal prioritisation) is a build in system that allows an operator to override the normal operation of traffic lights and signals. The most common use of these systems manipulates traffic signals in the path of an emergency vehicle, halting conflicting traffic and allowing the emergency vehicle right-of-way.

The sirens in the Netherlands and Germany have been tested so that the sound travels as far as possible and is best audible

I can Tell you that the german firetrucks especally the new ones from Hannover are the most modern fire trucks you can find in the world. Even thou they look small, they are crazy!!!

Singapore firetrucks are mainly from SK Fire, tink this company uses Scannia trucks....

the elantra is just the north american name for the avante. most south korean car models from the 2010's are named differently for each market.

That was fascinating, Joel. The sound of those German claxons made me want to hop a plane a start this summer's adventures. In my city, the police service is experimenting with using UK Battenburg markings on its cars - green and blue on white. It looks cool. All of that equipment looked great, especially the Seoul police car and the Honolulu ladder truck!! Cheers, John in Canada

Hello from Switzerland, our sirens are also the typical "Martin horn" (2 tones horn) like in Germany, although sometimes with a slightly different pitch. I found it interesting that in some countries there are apparently green signal lights for ambulances. I found the big red light rail bad in one of the Asian countries, but you could hardly see the lights. Regarding the ambulances being "normal" vans, I don't think this is the crucial point. Many of us have a broader structure, but not all of them. The professional care provided by the medical staff and the available equipment is likely to be more crucial here. In Germany, as here, an emergency doctor is on call very quickly if there is a significantly critical/life-threatening situation. In cases of serious accidents outside of the cities, it is not uncommon for REGA (a private organization for the air transport of patients and repatriation of patients from abroad) to be called in; the journey to a clinic (possibly a specialist clinic) is much shorter and is easier for the patient gentler.

The Austrian, Belgian, Dutch, and German sirens use acoustic horns. There has been research on the topic of acoustic vs digital horns. The results favored acoustic horns as they are better identified by other road users and for longer distances. Both give other road users more time and room to get their vehicles out of the way and/or to stop which results in the emergency vehicles getting faster to their destination. One downside to acoustic horns is their increased disturbance of other people but crews try to mitigate this by using the horns only when needed. In our town of 15k people, we have a voluntary fire brigade that has 1 to 2 dozen missions a month. Most are non-emergencies (e.g. cutting down a high tree after a storm has ravaged it). We have no police station but a depot for ambulances. They have dozens of missions every day and during the day you will hear sirens from time to time but drivers mostly don't use them at night as the streets are quite empty. Only when they want to force their right of way at a crossing or somebody's vehicle is blocking their way they will use the horn.

sirens for ambulances are three toned, all other emergency vehicles are 2 toned, with fire trucks from high to low and police sirenes from low to high. You are correct in that the dutch and german (also Flanders, Switzerland, Austria) systems are similar, advantage being you know, without having to see the emergency vehicle, what type of emergency vehicle approching.

We used to have sirens which could simply be identified between the three main emergency vehicles. Explanation beforehand: A was a higher tone and with stress/emphasis on it, the b is the lower tone and without stress/emphasis on it. An ambulance has four syllables in Dutch, so the siren had four tones A-b-A-b (am-bu-lan-ce), the politie (police in Dutch) had three syllables and a three tone siren b-A-b (po-li-tie) and the fire brigade (brandweer in Dutch) had two syllables and a two tone siren A-b (brand-weer). If you listened carefully, you would know which emergency vehicle was rushing towards an accident or emergency. But nowadays the sirens aren’t as recognizable anymore. Maybe it’s an EU thing, lots of it is these days. Or they use an ‘improved’ siren, ‘the new siren is better to hear’ or whatever silly excuse a civil servant has made up. But I think the sirens were better recognizable in the past.

All emergency vehicles in the Netherlands have those distinctive stripes (except for undercover police cars). This makes them easily stand out between other vehicles. Police cars are usually white with blue and red stripes (there are also blue with white and red stripes, but those are usually reserved for specific high-ranking officers) Firetrucks are red with blue and white stripes And Ambulances are yellow (a specific shade that generally isn't used for commercial cars) with blue and red stripes. As a result, ambulances usually stand out the most of all three. There are also a few different types of vehicles that each emergency unit uses, each with the corresponding color scheme: Fire: large trucks, smaller trucks, cars (not commonly used) Medical: ambulance vans, cars, helicopters (of which there are 3 operational in the country) Police: cars, vans, motorcycles, helicopters There are also some trucks occasionally used by police, but I've only ever seen those used when they brought in a water cannon to break up a protest, and I don't remember it being painted in police colors either

Why do North American alarms often sound like a dying turkey?

Those green trucks in Vietnam can be used to transport police or military or firefighters, most first responders use those truck because they were built for emergency services only I think

13:30 That's a Ladder Truck.

15:26 That’s because our roads are designed to be bottlenecks. And it has nothing to do with the number of people.

Canada has slowly but surely become far more like the US in far too many ways. 'Individualism' becomes covering term to being a selfish asshat with no consideration for the common good and the urgent needs of others. Sad to see it pronounced in other countries like Singapore. In a number of European countries, its a crime not to make way if you can. In the UK alone, you can face a fine up to £5000 for 'willfully impeding' the progress of emergency vehicles. As for Cuba, you see many very old/repurposed vehicles due to the US embargo (and its pressure on other countries) making it difficult to import new ones for decades. (Also, note how you did not see those predestrian-mowing bull bars on police vehicles outside of North America.)

As a French I can say we use the same horn as the Germans, not 100% identical but still mainly the same. Also some crazy fact for you to know: in Paris and all surrounding area, firefigters are linked to the military, yes they are soldiers AND firefighters and they live like in a true military base and must do one year of training like a regular infantry soldier before actually training like a firefighter, this is probably why Paris brigade is the third most efficient in the world. In addition to this, in Marseille, a city close to the sea in the south, firefighters are part of the navy, so same routine as in paris with additional specialised training for rescue in sea obviously. Also the reason why europeans use ladder trucks looking like a london bus with the ladder on their backs is because unlike in US our roads inside cities are not as big and wildly spread out, having a truck focus in lenght to move the truck will only result in being trapped in the endless circulation of cars so we do with the height instead to gain space and mobility in tiny streets

Too bad there were no Porsche police cars (Germany, Netherlands) or Lamborghini, Ferrari and even Bugatti police cars (Italy, UAE).

NOrth america sounds like gta you cant take that for serious

In Australia we use Toyota, Kia, VW & BMW sedans, SUV's and vans as police vehicles

You should at Burmese emergency responses. The police vehicles are essentially blue canvas topped military trucks or Toyota sedans. But what's more ubiquitous is green canvas topped military trucks and Military Chinese Type 90 Armored Personnel Carriers filled to the brim with green clad men with locally made copies of the G3. I'm so thankful I'm in the US and I don't have to risk getting a 20mm shell my way when I go out.🤣

we have the same or just slightly different sirens here in switzerland as in germany

here in Portugal there are several models and types of vehicles and motorbikes... All blue or blue and white are from PSP (Public Safety Police)... Yellow or fluorescent green are from INEM (National Institute for Medical Emergency)... Reds or red and white are from the Fire Department... all white are from SNPC or PC (National Service for Civil Protection)... Yellow with orange and other colors are from INSN (basically lifeguard/Coastal services).. gray and green or all green belong to the GNR (National Republican Guard)... the military uses specific camouflage green. Also PSP...GNR and Fire Departament have distinguish siren sounds between themselves... an red ambulance has a different sound from yellow one

The hawaian firetruck had a surfboard sticking out of the back lol.

19:52 BMW Motorcycles

Hi, i am a belgian who is discovering your video's for a month now. What I think would be nice to see is an interview where you can ask every question you would like to ask to an european, just to see what that gives. I'm a Belgian who traveled a lot of europe, who studied european journalism and has a masters degree in theatrical arts. I dont have a youtube channel and i dont really plan on starting one. On the other hand i think its cool to look at People of which you covered some video's before to do an interview with. Keep going with your nice content, i'm enjoying it!

13:44 that's called a Magirus ladder, very common where I'm from.

As a European its crazy for me to think that in the US and Canada emergency vehicles have to stop to 0 at intersections

NL; Police, Ambulance, Firedepartment all have a distict sound in the siren. Dutch, German and Beligian are similar but still different compared with each other. This might be my bias being from South Limburg, but Germany and Belgium are just around the corner. Our services even work together now days. So maybe that has to do with why they sound similar?!?

Belgium and Vietnam seem too have similar sirens like Netherlands and Germany.

Actualy germany starts using a system called "Hali-System" it makes it so that police, ambulance and also firetrucks gave always green light and all others have red light after they pased it it switches bac to the normal system rhythm

Singapore's are typically silent as long as they aren't in that much of a rush or obstructed.

The boat trailer in 20:20 looks like a Euro-style trailer with a passive-adaptive braking system. That totally would make sense for an emergency purpose.

18:28 This a Lada (Vas) 2107, made in the Soviet Union(Since Cuba and the Soviets were commie buddies the got some craggy cars for Mother Russia). It is a very slow ,unsafe ,and cheap car made for the people of Soviet Russia. The last 2107 was produced at Suzuki's factory in Egypt. where production ended In August 2011. The car was made for over 40 years and was sent to: Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Germany, Finland, Portugal, Iceland(under 100 cars exported), Sweden, United Kingdom and Ireland, Turkey, Egypt. Ladas were forbidden to be imported to Italy since the car was based on a Fiat 124. Lada is still in business and you can go check out there website if you want.

The Scania ladder truck is similar to what we use in Australia

Im not an expert, but from what I know cuba still primarily has older cars from the 50's because in 1962 the U.S. implemented an export ban to Cuba. Also due to communist rule private ownership wasn't really allowed. In 2008 Raul Castro (Fidels brother) lifted a 50 year law banning the sale of vehicles.

As a european it really pisses me off how the people in 3rd world countries dont give a flying fuck about fireturcks or ambulances and just go continuingh what ever they were doing...

The grey unmarked police cars at 5:10 min are most likely a german S.W.A.T. team (SEK, Sonder Einsatz Kommando). At 20:46 min you can see something special in Germany, Austria and few other european countries. The VW Transporter (T5?) driving in front of the Mercedes Ambulance is a so-called "Notarzteinsatzfahrzeug" (NEF) which transports a "Notarzt" to the patient. A Notarzt is an emergency physician working alongside the EMS in the field. He/she is dispatched in severe cases of trauma, shortness of breath, loss of consciousness and other cases which may be life-endagering or in cases with a lot of injured people. Here the NEF is shown escorting the Ambulance towards a hospital, the Notarzt is with the patient in the Ambulance.

"I've never seen a ladder loaded on top like that" right after the Hong Kong ladder there was a Canadian ladder, loaded the exact same way..... And later even Auburn's ladder is loaded that way....You should deep dive in European emergency vehicles......

What I really don't like, since my childhood, are wrong wailing sirens in movies from Hollywood. It may not be a big deal, but missing details like this still bother me. Millions are spent on film shoots, crew and actors, and then you can't get it done? For me, it's like when a machine gun is fired and all you hear is "bang bang". Especially incomprehensible when filming is not done in studios, but in real places in other countries and cities. What's next? The voice of the announcement of a New York subway in Berlin, London or Paris? 🤷‍♂

Hey, Cubas emergency vehicles look old because there is no real import of new ones, due to the poverty of the country and due to the embargo policy of the US, I believe! You should google it, interesting realationship between those two countries! LG Martin!

Nothing from Australia or New Zealand either?!🙄 oh well. BTW the American cop car at 9:36 is Australian, a rebadged and stripped down Holden caprice.

The european emergency sirens have a lower pitch which makes them audible from a longer distance - double the distance.

Avante is the KDM (Korean Domestic Market) name but it’s basically the Elantra here in the US. Japan is also very prevalent in the different name/same car ideal. Example would be Mazda‘s Miata (North America)/MX5 (Europe)/Roadster (Japan). On another note, you definitely need to check out the Italian Sirens: Ambulanza Sirena or Vigili Del Fuoco Sirena (including Pneumatic variants).

What I (German) don't like in the USA are the colorful lights on the emergency vehicles. It always looks like a disco. In Germany we only have blue warning lights for all emergency vehicles (police, fire and ambulance).

Vietnam last green cargo truck is transporting more firefighters because in the firetruck that not enough seat for more firefighter to arrive at scene so they we use that green truck to transport more firefighters at scene

I think most of Europe use the same sirenes, ambulances and so on.

Yeah, dog training with the club feels like there's a responder passing every 10-15 minutes, but then we are sat between the two highways that lead to the primary hospital, and have the main vehicle depots for each of the responders within 5 minutes of the same hospital

he looks so happy for this..

10:05 😂looks like a mobile home

20:44 THE BEST my Home and favorite film city HANNOVER love it!

9:05 OMG IT CAN STRAFE!!! 🤩🤩🤩🤩😍

5:23 The fire truck in Vietnam is just like American fire truck in China 😂

2:50 The Chinese automotive industry more or less started with the factories Volkswagen built there. The Passat/Santana models made a large portion of the initial production there. 13:50 Built by Magirus, a company founded in Ulm by Conrad Dietrich Magirus, commander of the voluntary firefighters brigade, in 1866; in 1936 taken over by Humboldt-Deutz (cologne), the brand was revived as Magirus-Deutz in 1949; in 1974 the company became part of a joint venture with Fiat and rebranded in 1983 as Iveco Magirus, since 2013 again only Magirus, in 2024 sold to holding company Mutares SE & Co KGaA. 18:30 The embargo against Cuba meant they had for a long time to hold on to the cars imported in the early 1950s, except for some imports from esatern Europe like that Lada police car (Lada being a Russian brand, using in the 1960s and 1970s mostly designs bought from Fiat, later from Renault-Simca). Later Cuba could also import some Asian cars. 19:45 A real big boy from Hamburg, Germany: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iNSSfLiZu6fUhmg.html 22:20 The Canadian fire trucks seem all to use their own local color scheme. Very confusing.

Very few late model vehicles in Cuba, because of US trade embargos

Blud Singaporuan and Italian firetrack look the same even the call number😂

Hi, Joel! 11:50: Germany and obviously, (I didn`t know it), The Netherlands and Belgium have the same alarm sound! Maybe when the Netherlands and Belgium buy a german ambulance car or firefighting car, the alarm-system is already installed? At least for the european market.

I noticed even in USA the fire appliances are cabover. I think that layout is safer for visibility when driving fast through cities.

Let see how Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippine, Brunei, Thailand, Africa and other more country response to ambulance because these video yet show you the whole world hehe..

The English police cars are so cute. It's kind of hard to be intimidated. 😂

Technical comparison would be interesting in my opinion ... I really like the Canadian vehicles looking fire but here is the point how much gallons it swallow by minimum 600 hp v8 big block I guess second point what's about equipment and how much gallons can the carry in case of fire department

13:20 rumble siren in Hong Kong, Nice 🤩

wow i love how the vid he is reacting to just ignores how we (Australia exists) lovely

17:22 Joel’s favourite city: Edinboro

Germany uses the Martin´s Horn after the Patron Saint Martin. Most of western europe does. If you pay close attention, you can hear the half-tone difference between Fire-, Ambulance- and Police cars. That´s how we know what is coming and what alert kicks in over the car radio.

i'm from Vietnam but im right now live in japan there are different between white,green and black white:traffic police green:i think normal police black:patrol/swat

"LADA" cars, built since the 1970s... if I'm not mistaken, the LADA in the video is the VAZ-2105 model built between 1980 and 2010.

Most fire trucks in Australia are either Scania or Mercedes Benz, most ambulances are Mercedes Benz vans

I'm surprised to hear that the canadian sirens sound exactly like the portuguese ones, I thought they were a bit more "americanised" than european.

I've watched the video you react several years ago and i alos had the same complain as you on how there's some many nations doesn't appear here

Every vehicle in Cuba is really old? They have a lot of 1950s era American and other cars still in regular service and they maintain them I believe

19:23 “da ist gerade die Feuerwehr“ Its a german Clip from Cuba.

Overall, all the sirens are very strong and people react well, I don't know if you've ever seen French emergency vehicles, the sirens are different, no rumble siren, and when the road is clogged, the French take a long time to react to an emergency vehicle, it has always surprised me, this behavior we have compared to other countries