I remember the salutes but they were dying out in the post war years - in the very early days if an AA patrol failed to salute you it was a warning that there was a police speed trap ahead. At the time the speed limit was 20 mph and the AA campaigned for this to be raised.
My dad had been a sergeant in the Scots Guards pre war and in WW2 he was an officer on the Military Police, and in his khaki uniform and peaked cap, in his mind he had never really left the military. On meeting his patrols at prearranged points on his rounds, he expected a salute, which he returned, and on one occasion I witnessed him giving one hapless patrol a huge bollocking because his uniform was scruffy and his motorbike and sidecar hadn't been washed. Can't imagine an AA patrol standing for that these days, when the AA is just a branch of an insurance company,