Introducing ELSi The Emergency Light Shutdown Instrument
- markaustin23
- 4 hours ago
- 9 min read
How a simple innovation is helping to protect the lives of the men and women who keep Britain's roads moving
Every day, recovery operators across the UK pull on their hi-vis gear, park on motorway hard shoulders and dual carriageways, and get to work in one of the most hazardous working environments imaginable. For decades they have had little more than amber flashing beacons to announce their presence to traffic travelling at 70 mph. This has now changed and Stem Electronics is proud to be involved.
ELSi, the Emergency Light Shutdown Instrument, is a demonstration of product development supporting industry advocacy, and a genuine commitment to making the roadside a safer place. This post explains where ELSi came from, why it matters, and how it improves on simply leaving a switch in the hands of an operator who may already be under enormous stress.
The Danger That Doesn't Make the Headlines
Roadside recovery is statistically one of the most dangerous occupations in Britain. The industry employs nearly half a million workers across Great Britain, with approximately 7,000 to 10,000 technicians providing invaluable assistance to roadside breakdowns and recovery, yet reliable national statistics on the number killed or seriously injured while attending breakdowns have historically been difficult to obtain because incidents often fall outside standard road-casualty reporting categories.
Some industry experts estimate there could be as much as one roadside recovery worker killed every two months in Britain, but despite the numbers, what we do know from tragic individual cases paints a stark picture:
September 2017 — recovery worker Steve Godbold lost his life on the M25 despite wearing high-visibility clothing and having amber lights running on his vehicle.
June 2018 — RAC patrol David Stokes, 33, was killed while repairing a vehicle on the A617 in Nottinghamshire.
August 2021 — Tom Watson, 30, from Southampton, died while helping a motorist whose car had broken down on the A303 near Andover in Hampshire — killed in a four-vehicle collision involving a lorry whose driver was arrested on suspicion of drug-driving. His employer Ray Avery said at the time: "Motorists have our lives in their hands" — and publicly backed the campaign to allow recovery drivers to use red warning lights.
February 2022 — Vologea Mihaliuc, 54, a recovery operative, was pronounced dead at the scene on the M3 at Chandler's Ford. The amber lights on his recovery vehicle were flashing. The taxi driver who struck him didn't see them because he was texting. Mohamed Farooq Saleemi was jailed for seven years in January 2026 for causing death by dangerous driving.
September 2025 — Ryan Balls, a 37-year-old father of four, was struck and killed while assisting a stranded motorist on the A11 dual carriageway in Norfolk. His partner Sophie wrote afterwards: "He went out that day, as he always did, to help people in need and to make the road safer for everyone. On Sunday, he never came home."
The fundamental problem is visibility, or rather the quality of warning that existing lighting gives to approaching drivers. Research commissioned by the Department for Transport and carried out by TRL Limited concluded that while amber lights signal the presence of a vehicle, the colour red carries a deeper psychological message. Drivers associate red with danger and the need to slow down and take avoiding action; amber does not carry the same instinctive weight.
Why Red? The Science and the Legislation
Until very recently, red flashing warning lamps on vehicles were reserved exclusively for the emergency services, police, fire, and ambulance. Highways England Traffic Officer vehicles were also permitted their use under a Vehicle Special Order (VSO). Recovery operators had been lobbying for the same right for years through the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Roadside Rescue and Recovery.
In September 2024, that campaign succeeded. The Professional Recovery Operators Safety Executive announced that operators in roadside recovery, removal, and the tyre industry can now apply for a VSO, allowing them to equip their vehicles with rear-facing red lamps for use when stationary at an incident.
The evidence base supporting this change is significant. A 2020 TRL evidence review for the Department for Transport found that drivers approaching a recovery vehicle would be better served by red warning lamps, because people have a deeply ingrained association between the colour red and the concept of danger. The review recommended that recovery vehicles should be permitted to use rear-facing red lamps, accompanied by driver awareness campaigns and clear guidance on permitted usage.
“The recovery industry has long called for the introduction of rear red flashing lights. The move to introduce them to all our breakdown and recovery fleet offers another layer of protection to our patrols when they’re attending to our members. Safety is paramount when rescuing our members, especially on fast-moving roads. Drivers know that red lights spell danger, so we urge the public that if they see a recovery vehicle with flashing red lights that they slow down, and if safe to do so, move over. These simple steps offer protection to stranded drivers and the patrols working on the casualty vehicle.”
Duncan Webb, AA head of fleet.
With the Right Comes Responsibility
The ability to use red flashing lights does not come without significant obligation. Before operators are permitted to activate red lamps, they must undergo specialist training that covers when red lamps may and may not be used, the precise circumstances under which they are legal, and — critically — the serious penalties for misuse.
The Institute of Vehicle Recovery (IVR) has developed a dedicated online course (VR34: Use of Warning Beacons and Lights) specifically for recovery operators who want to understand emergency beacon use, including rear-facing red flashing lamps. The course makes one point explicitly: rear-facing red lamps are not to be viewed as the primary warning light for recovery technicians, but as an addition when the hazards for a recovery technician are increased. It also emphasises that only companies holding a VSO from the Department for Transport can use rear-facing red lamps at all. The course takes approximately one hour and is a prerequisite before any operator uses red lighting in the field.
The DfT's VSO guidance goes further still. Training standards and protocols for the safe use of red flashing lamps have been developed by the Professional Recovery Operators Safety Executive (PROSE), the industry body that coordinated the VSO rollout announcement in September 2024. The guidance requires operators to provide industry-approved training, such as that certified by PROSE, to all drivers before they operate a vehicle fitted with red lamps, and to provide the DfT with evidence of that training upon request. Operators should also be aware that reassessment every five years is anticipated as a minimum ongoing requirement.
Because red lights have historically been associated exclusively with emergency service authority, using them while a vehicle is moving could be interpreted as impersonating an emergency worker, which is a criminal offence. Training therefore places strong emphasis on the rule that red lamps must only be used when the vehicle is stationary at an incident. The moment the operator is ready to leave the scene, the lights must be off.
The interlock is not optional, it is a VSO condition. The Department for Transport's official VSO guidance states explicitly that red lamps must be "linked to a functioning vehicle interlock which permits their activation only when the vehicle is stationary and automatically deactivates them when the vehicle reaches a speed exceeding 5 mph." Furthermore, the VSO application form requires operators to describe exactly what interlock system will be used before a VSO is even granted.
In other words, an operator cannot legally hold a VSO without an approved interlock in place. An operator who attempts to use red lamps with only a manual switch, relying entirely on the driver remembering to act, is almost certainly non-compliant with their VSO conditions, and if the lamps are activated while moving, the VSO becomes invalid. At that point, the vehicle is fitted with illegal lighting, and the operator or driver could face prosecution. This is the exact problem ELSi was engineered to solve.
How ELSi Came to Be — The Story Behind the Product
November 2019. RISC (the Roadside Industry Safety Committee) approached Phoenix Systems about developing a system that would automatically shut down red flashing lights on roadside recovery vehicles. The immediate goal was to create a demonstrator — proof that technology existed to make automatic shutdown a reality — to support the industry's campaign to convince the UK Government to permit the use of red lights in legislation. Automatic shutdown was the safety net that would address Government concerns about lights being left on accidentally.
March 2020. COVID-19 arrived, and with it a Government focused on a national emergency. Lobbying activity and legislative progress were significantly delayed. Development work paused accordingly. But with the lockdowns came reflection — and a realisation about the potential importance of this technology.
Late 2020. Stem Electronics was established as a specialist off-shoot from Phoenix Systems, with a focus on innovative electronics products for the professional vehicle and industrial sectors. The leadership team looked at the ELSi concept and made a decision: the safety benefits were compelling enough that Stem would fund the full development of the Emergency Light Shutdown Instrument, independent of the original demonstrator brief. This was not a commissioned project — it was a company choosing to invest in a safety product it believed in.
2021 - 2023. Development continued but final design and production versions held pending update on the government legislation.
September 2024. Legislation finally catches up. VSO applications open. The market ELSi was built for now legally exists — and operators need a reliable, automatic solution to ensure they are always compliant.
October 2025. ELSi is officially launched as a product at the 2025 Professional Recovery Tow Show in Kenilworth.
What ELSi Does — and Why It Beats a Manual Switch
ELSi (Emergency Light Shutdown instrument) is Stem Electronics' engineered answer to the interlock requirement built into every VSO. The DfT guidance is unambiguous: red lamps must be linked to a functioning vehicle interlock that permits activation only when stationary, and automatically deactivates them above 5 mph. ELSi fulfils that requirement precisely, monitoring the operational state of the recovery vehicle and managing lamp shutdown automatically when the vehicle begins to move or when the amber lights are disengaged. |  |
It is independent from the vehicle systems, and does not require modification to any existing vehicle systems and will therefore not invalidate any vehicle warranty or insurance policies. If required it can be powered from a standard 12V accessory socket. | |
Compare that with the alternative — a manual switch:
🔴 Automatic, not human-dependent
Manual switches rely entirely on the operator remembering to act at the right moment. ELSi removes the dependency on memory under pressure.
⚖️ VSO compliance — by design
The DfT VSO conditions legally require an interlock that deactivates red lamps above 5 mph. ELSi meets that requirement as a core function, not an afterthought.
⏱️ Faster scene departure
Operators can focus on safely leaving the scene rather than running a mental checklist. Fewer checks mean quicker clearances — which is itself a safety benefit.
🔗 Fleet-level peace of mind
For operators managing fleets of recovery vehicles, ELSi provides a consistent, engineered safety standard across every vehicle — not just the ones driven by the most experienced technicians.
The Future
The introduction of red flashing lights for recovery operators has been described by industry leaders as one of the most significant road safety advances for the sector in a generation. It has taken years of evidence gathering, demonstration of technology, lobbying, off-road trials, and formal regulatory process to reach this point. The Department for Transport's commissioned evidence review ran to 71 pages and covered literature reviews, stakeholder consultations, and regulatory impact assessments before recommending that the change proceed.
"This is a landmark day for the roadside assistance industry as being able to use red flashing lamps will unequivocally improve the visibility of roadside workers and help save lives. There have been too many tragic collisions where lives have been lost involving stationary recovery vehicles at the sides of high-speed roads where more prominent red lights might have made a difference. This is why we have long been calling for roadside assistance workers and recovery drivers, including our own, to be allowed to use red flashing lamps alongside the customary amber ones."
— Dom Shorrocks, Chief Operations Officer, RAC
But many people have stated that the use of red flashing lighting must be done responsibly. The rules governing when red lamps may be used are specific, and misuse will result in the licence being revoked and potentially the legislation changing to remove their use, so this imposes a real responsibility on every operator.
ELSi is the engineering answer to the human factor in that equation. It is the product that ensures a landmark legislative moment is implemented safely, consistently, and in the way it was intended.
Want to know more about ELSi?
Contact the Stem Electronics team to discuss how ELSi can be integrated into your recovery vehicle fleet or VSO application programme.
Available for purchase at Recovery Equipment Direct
References & Further Reading
Department for Transport (2024). Red flashing lamps: roadside rescue and recovery operators.
gov.uk/government/publications/red-flashing-lamps-roadside-rescue-and-recovery-operators
TRL Limited for the Department for Transport (2020). Use of red flashing lamps on roadside recovery vehicles: evidence review (PPR971).
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk (PDF, 1.17MB)
RAC (2024). Use of red flashing lights a 'landmark day for the roadside assistance industry'.
Department for Transport / Vehicle Certification Agency. Guidance for operators requiring a VSO to fit and use rear-facing red flashing lamps on breakdown vehicles (v2).
Available via: prose-uk.com
PROSE — Professional Recovery Operators Safety Executive (September 2024). Announcement of Red Lamp Training and VSO Rollout.
The IVR Group. VR34 — Use of Warning Beacons and Lights (online training course for recovery operators).
BBC News. Andover A303 crash: Recovery driver 'died helping motorist' (1 September 2021).
Fleet News. Police investigation after death of vehicle technician (Ryan Balls, September 2025).
Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary (January 2026). Taxi driver who was using phone while driving is jailed for fatal collision. hampshire.police.uk
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