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Collision avoidance ideas
I've been thinking about this problem for a while now and I believe that we in the Emergency Services / Law Enforcement sector have many tools we can use to not only combat drivers who fail to yield and make emergency response more dangerous, but will help curb the number of apparatus vs. POV collisions which occur.
Among the ideas I've thought of are:
"Bumper Cams" on fire apparatus and ambulances. Sealed units installed by the Police, which turn on automatically when the unit is dispatched and remain filming as long as the vehicles warning lights are activated. Once the vehicle returns to station the video is automatically uploaded via Wi-Fi to the Police for Failure to Yield enforcement (i.e. ticket in the mail with a pretty picture of your car failing to yield, and a saved video for court proceedings if needed), plus a copy of the video saved to the Fire Investigation unit's hard drive for review (if a picture is worth thousand words, a video of a working fire is worth a thousand pictures to a fire Investigator) and a copy to the Training and/or Safety Officer for use in After Action Reviews and future training.
Another idea I've had is posting signs below the green “4-WAY" sign on stop signs near fire stations/EMS stations and along thoroughfares used regularly by responding apparatus to remind drivers that this route is heavily used by responding Emergency Vehicles.
Also, I know my radar detector has a feature which alerts the driver of approaching emergency vehicles, but it only works where the emergency vehicles as a transmitter working. These should be installed in all apparatus and should begin transmitting whenever the warning lights are activated.
These are just a few ideas, who else has some ideas for improving response safety which are from "outside the box?"
GM
Among the ideas I've thought of are:
"Bumper Cams" on fire apparatus and ambulances. Sealed units installed by the Police, which turn on automatically when the unit is dispatched and remain filming as long as the vehicles warning lights are activated. Once the vehicle returns to station the video is automatically uploaded via Wi-Fi to the Police for Failure to Yield enforcement (i.e. ticket in the mail with a pretty picture of your car failing to yield, and a saved video for court proceedings if needed), plus a copy of the video saved to the Fire Investigation unit's hard drive for review (if a picture is worth thousand words, a video of a working fire is worth a thousand pictures to a fire Investigator) and a copy to the Training and/or Safety Officer for use in After Action Reviews and future training.
Another idea I've had is posting signs below the green “4-WAY" sign on stop signs near fire stations/EMS stations and along thoroughfares used regularly by responding apparatus to remind drivers that this route is heavily used by responding Emergency Vehicles.
Also, I know my radar detector has a feature which alerts the driver of approaching emergency vehicles, but it only works where the emergency vehicles as a transmitter working. These should be installed in all apparatus and should begin transmitting whenever the warning lights are activated.
These are just a few ideas, who else has some ideas for improving response safety which are from "outside the box?"
GM
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Tony P on
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Strange - no replies? Everyone missed seeing your post, just like me?
Civilians failing to see or hear us (should they be driving with such poor eyesight?). Driving Code 1 (that's lights and sirens here) is seen dangerous, with good reason. A combination of inattentive civilians and emergency vehicle drivers that have trouble coping with the adrenaline is a recipe for tragedy.
Our officers will bring poor driving to a driver's attention if needed - hell, I've told drivers they were going too fast! It's something that we all need to be aware of. But the civilians?
I like your camera idea, but can't see it ever happening here - cost. The radar detector idea sound interesting, but that won't happen here as those things are illegal. Extra signs? Once again, interesting but realistically, how often do people read such things? There are so many signs on our roads now that we suffer from sign-overload!
I'm not putting any of your ideas down, I like them all. Though I like the idea of passing information to the Police and having them book the offending drivers the most. There's a school of thought here that says we can't do that as it would antagonise the community. I don't know that I agree with that, if word got around that failing to give way to an emergency vehicle was going to cost you over $500 I think that people would be more attentive with their driving, and so safer all round. I also think that most people are good, and would see such fines as warranted.
Other ideas? One in use here (at a few lucky Stations) is to have a warning sign with flashing amber lights that are triggered from the Station when a vehicle is about to leave on an emergency call. They are said to be quite effective.
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Permalink Reply by roy yoder on
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i like the camera idea and it can be used as a two edged sword. the folks not yielding and the firefighter dealing with the adreline. with so many laws in place its sort of hard ot know what or how to respond sometimes. here in ga. we can do anything we want in responding as long as we do it with due regard to saftey of personnell and property. so turn on the red lights and something happens and it is your fault. camera won't change that but might help in drivers training. man a thousand words, that would even shut me up for a while. we do have a couple of dept. that are mounting helment cams in the cab of there truck and some depts. are not allowing thier firefighters to wear them because of privacy problems when they post them. still a great training tool and good for investigation. we had a car fire and the radio was out on the ground drivers door and the helment cam showed that the door was closed when we pulled up.
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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on
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Haven't you heard of the black box for fire apparatus? No? Research it. It tells no lies
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