Just saw one of the old UMBC PD Crown Vic's drive by (not the new Chargers) and noticed it had a brand new Federal Signal Valor LED lightbar on it's roof... I'm trying to understand why we are wasting money on updating the lightbars from strobes or halogen rotators to $2000+ LED bars?

I'm all for officer safety while on patrol or while out on the side of the road, but in our environment I feel like this is overkill. Being realistic it's not like our cruisers are often required to break through crowded intersections and rarely ever do anything more than travel the circle and occasionally pull someone over. I understand that light bars fail over time, and thus must be replaced, but a $600-800 replacement rotator style, $1100 strobe, or even a $1500 LED bar would have been a better investment, and keep the funds for something more useful around campus.