Next, we’ll be calling them bobbies.
Some NYPD patrol-car cops have started using a British-style siren called the hi-lo, common in Europe but derided by many US police departments as feeble and ineffective.
The hi-lo is gaining popularity among patrol officers looking for a better way to cut through the noise of Manhattan.
Traditionalists scoff at the hi-lo, a common sound in foreign-film chase scenes with two alternating pitches.
The hi-lo’s new popularity comes 18 months after the NYPD rolled out the Rumbler, a siren combining a blast of sound with a thundering, sonic vibration that can be felt 200 feet away.
Officers say the most-used NYPD cop-car sirens are the yelp, which sounds like a whoop, and the wail, a throwback to the spiraling up-and-down pattern of 1950s patrol cars.
There’s also the air horn — a one-note blast — and the “fast,” a staccato pulse.