Permalink Reply by Alan on February 22, 2009 at 6:49pm
our dept no longer has anybody ride the backstep except for taking Santa around. When I first joined in the early 90's we could ride there. We had safety straps there that we had to wear.
NOPE! We quit about 15 years ago. I remember riding tailboard years ago and enjoying the ride and view. Understand why its not done today but was fun back then.
Permalink Reply by Tom on March 24, 2009 at 8:58pm
We do not ride the back step except for Santa drive bys and funeral processions for the engine carrying the casket.
We also will ride there to repack the 5" if it’s a long lay.
Seat belts are also important. We have had a member fall out of an enclosed cab when it went around the corner. He was getting dressed when responding and think the sleeve got behind the door handle. Thankfully he did not get hurt.
The only time we do it is for funerals. Check out my pics and you will see. I'm the guy on the right side of the truck. We were wearing a harness and traveling at a low rate of speed. The casket was special ordered by his wife. It was very nice.
i dont know about now but i was on a dept in michigan and we was allowed to ride the boards we was told when and if we got rid of the truck that would be the end of it i thought it would be cool so i did it one time and one time only you never notice how far up you can bounce on a board when you go over a set of railroad tracks at 3 am and its not like the driver was going fast either we just bounced lmao all the way back to the station but i never rode it again
In PA the only two groups of people that are allowed by law to ride on the rear of a vehicle are garbage men and firefighters although NFPA has said no to the idea a long time ago. All new revisions of NFPA standards allow for exisiting equipment to be grandfathered in, so that any change only applies to equipment bought after the new standard takes effect. You can still order a truck with a tailboard and riding positions but it would not meet NFPA and ISO would not acknowledge it for rating, so you would spend all that money on nothing. All of that being said I havent seen anyone riding tailboard for a long while.