Police Vehicles - Great Britain: Books - History

London's Emergency Service Vehicles

Whether your interest is police, fire, ambulance, or associated emergency and rescue services, this fully illustrated book of nearly 200 images captures central London's many 999 services going about their daily business.
Photographed live from the streets of central London, many of the images vividly capture the drama of fast-moving response vehicles as emergency crews battle through London's congested streets.

Complementing vehicles from the Metropolitan Police Service, London Fire Brigade and London Ambulance Service (including the latter's cycle response unit and rapid response vehicles), are those of the British Transport Police, City of London Police, and Ministry of Defence Police.

London's Air Ambulance high-speed road vehicles, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, British Red Cross Society, St John Ambulance and private ambulance firms are also highlighted. Mounted and marine unit sections of the Metropolitan Police are not overlooked, nor are their red-coloured Diplomatic Protection Group units and Special Escort Group motorcycles escorting very important people - including royalty.

Dave Boulter offers a real flavour of the modern central London emergency scene, making this lavishly illustrated volume a must for anyone with an interest in emergency vehicles.

Police Stop! - Patrol and Response Vehicles in England and Wales

Cars and vans in high-vis livery, racing to incidents with pulsating lights and blaring sirens are part of the everyday scene in our towns and on our highways.
This book outlines the fascinating story of vehicles in police service, and shows how police forces have always had to react to society's changes, particularly the growth of motor transport.
It explains how the enlargement of the police fleet came from a variety of causes including two world wars, developments in communications, shortage of manpower, new towns and the building of the motorway network.

Illustrations, many in full colour, show a progression from the time when the first police used horses and rowing boats, through the years of black and dark blue vehicles to a colourful era which saw police patrol cars and vans carry an extraordinary range of individual and generally attractive liveries, now all superseded but grouped, identified and compared here for the first time.

Readers who perhaps remember only their local schemes may be amazed to see the variety which was to be found across the two nations - and enjoy a parade of vehicles which ruled the road in their heyday yet so quickly have become memory.
Fasten your seat belts. Let's book on and pursue an intriguing story!

Modern British Ambulances

The ambulance service uses a lot of specialised vehicles in the day-to-day role of providing emergency care, routine transport and emergency response. They range from the specially constructed ambulance bodies on commercial chassis to small car conversions. This collection of images show the range of different types of ambulances used in Britain in the twenty-first century.

As well as showing front line ambulances used by the NHS, voluntary aid societies, private ambulances, works ambulances and air ambulances all feature. Alongside all the services the different vehicle marques and coach builders are shown. Each photo shows a particular type of ambulance and, wherever possible, which company provided the conversion to an ambulance.

These show the changes over the past few years both in the boundary of ambulance services, as well as the design of ambulances that are used in Britain as they undertake their vital lifesaving work.