MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why are fire trucks red?

A firetruck races to the scene of an accident.

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why are fire trucks red?

There are a few different theories about why fire trucks are red, and they both make sense! So you can choose which you want to believe.

Theory 1: The trucks were originally painted red to make them stand out from all the other vehicles on the road. Back in the early 1900s, Ford only offered cars in black, so red fire trucks would be sure to stand out from all the black vehicles on the road.

Theory 2: The earliest fire departments were made up of unpaid volunteers. These volunteers didn’t have much money, and red was the cheapest color of paint to buy, so they painted their fire trucks red for that reason and it just stuck ever since.

 

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