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Maine is Mandating EVOC for Fire Personnel
i was talking to my fire chief today and he was telling me that the state is going to pass a law in june about makeing evoc mandatory for all driver/operators. now heres the kicker traditionally its been an 8 hour class room fallowed by 8 hours in the field and you good to go, but now it you have to have 8 hours in each truck you drive with a state certified instructor rideing with you.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Justin Scott on
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i personaly think its a great idea.
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Permalink Reply by John Rulli Jr. on
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Thats good. weed out the bad drivers
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Permalink Reply by Daniel H Skelton on
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i do think its a good idea but the small town depts are going to have a hard time keeping up with it.
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i do think its a good idea but the small town depts are going to have a hard time keeping up with it.
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Permalink Reply by Brian Mackie on
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Good for Maine! Too bad everyone wasn't as progressive. Consider the cost of rigs these days... and I am guessing here. $ 300 - 500 thou, unless its an aereal device, then it could be doubled? am I at least close???
And consider in the law suit happy society we live in, the cost of a mistake by inexperience or lack of training behind the wheel. Now its easier to justify the reasoning behind the MAINE reason here.
Who would you want behind the wheel? Someone who can drive it? or someone who can drive it safely and responsibly? Driving is part of the job. We train for more than 8 hours to do many tasks, why would driving be any different.
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Permalink Reply by Vic Silverfish on
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That's madness. 8 hours with a state instructor in each vehicle?
In general I favour a good training program, but that sounds like a bit much. I wonder if "state certified" means a local guy can be certified as an instructor, so each station has a few guys who can oversee the training.
Good luck!
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Permalink Reply by Trainer on
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May very from state to state, but I believe EVOC is only 8 hrs, maybe 16 for a certified instructor, or a train the trainer. This also eliminate the need for a class b non-CDL which is required for non-emergency driving. For those of you that don't require EVOC or the class b and something should happen, you insurance carrier has the right to reject the clam.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Meadows on
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Take our situation in the county I live in. We have 9 engines, 1 aereal, 1 rescue, 1 surburban, 1 excursion, and 1 tanker. And we have a pretty stringent training policy. Those of us who drive have to have driver training and pump training in order to get the privlige to drive. Then you have to ride with the company captain and the dept chief before you have that privlige. And the driver training has to be refreshed every year. And it can be revoked if you get any kind of ticket. If we had to do the above that would be a lot of ride time and cost for the state and for the dept. I can see increasing the amount of classroom training and even hands on training but to have to have 8 hours for each truck and have a state certified instructer with you is kind of overkill.
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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Halverson on
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I would like to know what caused these new requirements to come about. Was there some string of accidents that were found to have been D/O error? I'm not saying its not a good idea for them to have EVOC, which it is, but there has to be something that's caused the state to enact this law.
Anyway, every one in the department that sponsors my post, when they go through fire school, gets EVOC. We've gotten to use the driving simulator they use to help with the training, and it seems pretty realistic. (End ramble)
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Permalink Reply by Mac Conant on
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Im from Maine. And Im from a small town, all vollie dept. While I see the safer responce being a good thing..I work two Jobs. Im going to school for firefighter 1&2 and Im taking a EMT-B class. I don't have time to sit in yet another class room for 8 hours doing a driving course and then 8 Hours in EACH truck I want/can drive. There are two trucks I drive now. A mini pumper, and a Chevy Pickup. I can get water out of the pumper if I need to. And I have AVOC so if rescue needs me to, I can drive the Amb. So say this law pass's. And we need to train more drivers. You have multiple people, needing to drive the same truck, for 8 hours total. That's a lot of fuel. I doubt our Budget or Town would like that.
And Just a FYI, our newest pumper is a 92 and it was 60k. So Brian while I respect/understand your statement about the cost of Rigs..when our budget isnt even big enough for a new anything, even fuel is a big deal.
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Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on
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First off, I would have to see the actual wording of the proposed "law." Safe driving is safe driving and it makes no sense to require someone to be "certified" in each piece, other than ambulance, engine and ladder (3 very different kinds of apparatus). I'm betting it has to do with GVW. That being said, 8 hours of supervised driving is not that much and I'm pretty sure it doesn't have to be done all at once. I'm guessing that everyone's original driver's license required much more than 8 hours of supervised driver training.
Mac, regardless of how many jobs you are working and what classes you are taking, that should not be an excuse for you NOT to have to take an EVOC class. If it's too much time right now, don't do it. But you shouldn't try to justify it away simply because you have a heavy (self-imposed) work load. Safety first, right?
If you further feel that it is too burdensome on your department to have to have supervised driver training (as the cost of fuel is too high) then I would seriously have to question other safety issues in your department. Your community should be supporting your department to be the best equipped, trained and safest it can be, not cutting corners and expenses to have the most cut-rate department, that's how people get killed.
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