Firefighters: best place to mount a siren and horn?

What if what if what if what.....

What if trained yokel does everything by the book, and when he gets to the intersection a good citizen pulls through the light to try to get out of the way and gets tboned killing his 2 kids inside?

Letting people have lights on their car is absolutely retarded and not needed

 

What if instead of arguing that your opinions are better than someone else's somebody actually pointed to some valid statistics or data that supported their claims and helped educate the rest of us?

 

What if a meteor hits a bus full of nuns. Blah blah blah! I am sure he is no less responsible than any of the heroes anywhere else.

 

I'm a firefighter in my, there's whole lot of speculation going on in here. Everyone's asumming it's balls to the wall every call.
There are times i don't even use my blue lights (yes plural) but even when I do, I drive with due regard. Thing is tho, my area is heavily heavily populated with orthodox jews, Haitian, Spanish.
There's so much illegal housing that one automatic alarm that comes in through the alarm company could be a second call, turn into a structure fire and displace 14 mexicans.
(Happened in june)


EDIT and ny passed a blue light law, gotta move over or slow down just like you would coming up a trooper or a tow truck on the highway. That's if your Goin to pass the vehical, not if it's going to pass you, (from my understanding)

 

9 times out of 10, I'm the first one to the station, lights or no lights, helps living 3 blocks away. Ya get dressed, pull up the map page, open the rest of the doors (if you have more then one access point to the fire house)

I have blue lights, PA is a blue light state, EMS and Fire are Red and White, Police are Red and Blue. I hardly use them any more, even when driving my personal to the actual scene.

Just last Friday, and I believe Sunday, we had two volunteers, running lights to a fire call, both were involved in serious accidents, striking another vehicle. They were both working structural fires, both in the lower end of my county, and both passengers of the struck vehicles were seriously injuries. The first accident, was a guy whose been doing this for years, struck a Police car head on. In a neighborhood.

Shit is going to happen, lights or no lights, what if's, the sad thing is, most vehicle accidents could have been avoided.

Personally, do what you want to your vehicle, as long as it meets the states law. Just don't do something stupid and get someone killed.

 

Like he said, lights and sirens or not, shit does happen.
There's people that don't pull over or stop when I'm driving the firetruck (all the time)and when I pass them, I can see they have stupid fucking earbuds in, which you not allowed to drive with in anyway.

Death by Distracted drivers is becoming a big statistic, almost as bad a drunk drivers, people just don't pay attention weather your in a firetruck, police car, ambulance, or a personal vehicle there's always risks cause people just don't pay attention.

 

fify

 

IMO departments should have a definitive policy on what is and is not allowed in terms of use of lights and sirens and violation of traffic rules in personal vehicles, and whatever actions policy allows volunteers should be well trained in how and when to use (or not use) them. I don't like the idea of leaving it up to the individual. You would not allow someone to use equipment or participate in an effort for which they were not qualified on scene. Why allow it in a personal vehicle when you are just as or more likely to die on the way as on scene?

 

I am a volunteer FF/EMT and only run a small 5" or 6" red LED light bar, no sirens (see new Avatar ) Some folks get out of control with lights on there vehicles,especially the younger guys ~20-25 Y.O.. Anyway, be safe and thanks for you time - be safe brother!

 

The only place I ever volunteered was the two years I spent in very rural Missouri. We weren't supposed to respond to the scene in a POV unless we we're running lights. If we were running light there was a specific minimum and maximum setup we had to fall between on our POV. The setup had to be inspected and verified by the sheriff's dept. I went with a siren, magnetic blue lollipop, and an IR blaster, pretty much the minimum. When lights and sirens were on and we were responding we were covered under firehouse insurance, same as if we were in the truck. As to being the first on scene, as I often was living a good distance from the center of the district, you assess the scene, start providing assistance where you can (a lot of gear lived in my truck for just responding to calls), and get on the radio to prepare those about to arrive on scene for what to expect.

 

There are,


And it's not.
But who calls a cop on a firefighter unless they really almost or did cause an accident responding.

 

My state has rule/law when to run lights in addition to, I assume most Depts do as well, we have SOP's for running lights. You can get into big trouble for not following these, but I think it comes down to basic common sense...