I’ve been noticing lately that some large vehicles have sticks on the front. They are on the front corners, affixed to the bumper (at the bottom), are verticle, and are about 2.5 feet long. Most of the ones that I’ve seen are orange and appear to be plastic, but I saw some that were black and appeared to be metal. The black ones had small red lights on top.
I’ve seen these on buses, ambulances, and trucks, but only on some of those vehicles.
I’m kind of just guessing, but I think they are to give the driver some reference on where his bumper is on his truck. Its a big vehicle and they have to often squeeze it into tight places. The sticks allow them some idea of where their truck corner is so they don’t hit something.
There also are some vehicles that may be used to deploy orange traffic cones. The cones can easily be removed from or placed back on those vertical bars/sticks.
I’m not sure why a truck (obviously meant for hauling), an ambulance, or a bus would need to deploy traffic cones though. And the orange ones seem too flimsy.