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Traffic Control - Whose Job Is It?
Im wondering who usely does treffic control in your area and whos duty is it?( Im reffering to agentceis here such as fire service or police.)
p.s. this is not ment to be dirty landry or stupid in any way
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Captain Kevin C. Ross on
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In our area it is the police agencies responsibility for traffic control. Who does traffic control the fire department. Most fire departments in my area have a division called fire police which their primary function is to direct traffic and provide crowd control at the scene of a fire department operation. Most fire police divisions are manpower starved and therefore, are a lot of times supplemented by other fire department personnel. There is some legality questions to the fire police operating during any non - fire department operation, or after a fire department operation has been completed, so unfortunately it has evolved into once the fire department arrives at a scene, they are on location for extended amount of time. I have been out for anywhere from 1 hour to 24 hours just for traffic control that either had no fire department related operation or long after the fire department operation was complete. The reason for this is that the police agencies have such limited resources within their agencies they can not afford one unit out on a traffic control matter let alone two or three units. So working in the spirit of cooperation the fire departments provide this help. This is highly unfair to the fire department personnel. The police agencies should also be concerned about this practice, if they need to hire more officers or need to put more officer on each shift to provide all aspects of their agencies service then they should be pushing for that to happen instead of allowing their agencies to use the fire departments to short change the public and their department of the necessary manpower. Captain Kevin C. Ross
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Permalink Reply by John Gallagher on
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In NY city the police dept. is in charge of traffic control. On arrival at a scene, I would position the apparatus so as to block all traffic untill the members were safely off the rigs. This was my standard SOP. Even on major highways all lanes should be blocked off untill we see that all members are off the rig. When drivers see fire apparatus on the road, they know they might get stuck there. So they will try to slip around the rigs, by blocking the entire roadway, we can prevent this. You can always open lanes as needed after everyone is safely off the rigs.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Frenzel on
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Here in Germany it's usually the State Police division Traffic Police / Highway Patrol which is in charge of traffic control. In most states the FD isn't allowed to control traffic (stopping it when necessary yes that's ok, but not really directing traffic) - the only exception is the state of Bavaria, where I live in. In Bavaria FDs are allowed to control traffic.
For those traffic control tasks the fire trucks not only have some orange warning lights or lightsticks on the back of their truck, but they have so-called traffic-safety-trailers, which technically are full-size warning signs combined with directional arrows, but as traffic sign and as light setup. These trailers are very important on the highways (just saying: German Autobahn). Some traffic safety vans from the Highway Patrol have similar signs as well, but those are relatively small compared to the ones from the FD. Here are some examples:
In the first video you see a Technical Rescue pulling the trailer, and then towards the end of the video you see the trailer set up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UXukPirCiQ
As you see the upper part of the trailer is folded down while driving, but it can b e set up while driving, you don't have to stop first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB98zK8Izzk
Looking at my city (population of 200,000, the Paid FD with one station covering the whole city area, and 2 highways going through the city), there are 2 trailers directly in the city (1 at the Paid/Career FD and one at the VFD), and 4 trailers just outside the city limits
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Permalink Reply by Thomas J. Champion on
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In our area in Interstat 70 it's a crap shoot. It depends on location, time of day and the event itself. Also depends on who's there state police or county. I have been on a scene where I have 4 firefighters two of them are directing traffic and there was 4 state troopers and 2 county cops. We are doing traffic control and they were thaking ablout there retirement optoins. We park trucks in a fend off position to protect the scene and just wing it from there. We worked a MVA last January where a semi hit a tree at 80 MPH the driver was DOA when I got to the scene a young trooper came up to me gave me that info then asked if we could move out trucks back so he could take photos and stuff. Then he floored me he said once I do that we will get out of your way the interstate is closed for as long as the fire department needs. Great guy. So sorry its pot luck who's involved, whats involved and where it's at.
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Permalink Reply by Ron King (Fire Chief) on
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We all help with this.
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Permalink Reply by Norm Tindell on
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I like Ron's use of the word "help." That's exactly what we're doing because in our case law enforcement is responsible for controlling traffic aside from our scene safety devices such as cones, etc. If we are at an intersection we usually post folks to direct traffic if we have the manpower, then they are eventually relieved by deputies or troopers.
I still do not feel comfortable directing traffic because no matter what the situation there's always at least one idiot who refuses to yield and, in some case, tries to run over you, wands/vest/radio and all!
Years ago we had a male driver in a pickup blow through one of our wreck scenes and refuse to follow directions. As he passed me and we made eye contact I saw the neighboring city (paid) fire department decal on his window! I still regret not being able to capture his license plate.
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Permalink Reply by stephen Delisle Miller on
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In Barbados re our operational policy whenever there is an emergency, the police is always notified. Normally, we arrive first and from that point a size up is given, safety issues are taken into consiseration for crew and appliance. With that in mind, we ensure that safety is paramount until the police arrive to carry out their function of traffic/crowd control as well as investigate the cause of the incident.
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In Barbados re our operational policy whenever there is an emergency, the police is always notified. Normally, we arrive first and from that point a size up is given, safety issues are taken into consiseration for crew and appliance. With that in mind, we ensure that safety is paramount until the police arrive to carry out their function of traffic/crowd control as well as investigate the cause of the incident.
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Permalink Reply by Matt Lacey on
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Depending on area and time of day it is a crap shoot. I will say this though as much as our department bitches about doing traffic control the only time I ever hid on the back side of a rig was when the county sheriff and his deputy stood in the middle of the road waving people through while shooting the shit. Two more almost accidents later we were told to clear and I was up in the cab as quickly as possible.
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