ND4SPD
07-25-2008, 10:43 AM
Some of you may or may not know I work in Madison as a firefighter (actually Apparatus Engineer or "driver"). Anyway, every day I drive a 22+ ton fire apparatus which doesn't exactly stop on a dime. The truck is outfitted with all manner of visual and audible warning devices... lights, sirens, horns, etc... Yet, we are routinely ignored, cut off, and so on. So I thought I'd share a short excerpt from one of our responses a few months back illustrating this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsSBwbhsPD0
Since I moved to the Milwaukee area I've noticed that people around here are actually pretty good about doing what they're supposed to do when an emergency vehicle shows up. Pull over to the right and stop (or just get the hell out of the way). In Madison, that isn't the case. If we're just driving around normal speed coming back from a call people will often pull over in front of us even though we don't have our lights on. They also ignore right-of-way laws to let us go first or pass.
Once we turn the lights and siren on it's like the people of Madison completely lose their minds. I have had people race me (try to stay ahead of me because they don't want to pull over). A couple of years back a pack of crotch rocket riders were doing stunts right in front of and next to one of our ambulances (while they were on their way to a rocket rider that had just put himself through the windshield of a minivan. Yesterday on the Beltline highway a guy (on his cell phone of course) PASSED me on the left while I was doing 65 MPH in a 55 on the way to a fire call. As soon as he got a few feet in front of me either he finally saw the lights or heard one of the blasts from the air horn, but then he slammed on his brakes and went off onto the shoulder nearly losing control of his car in the process. It's also not just cars, it's pedestrians too. Last year I had some ghetto-rat look right at my truck as we're bearing down at him (obviously in a hurry, lights and siren, air horn blaring)... what does he do? Steps off the curb and lolly-gags his way across three lanes of traffic right in front of us. Needless to say I made damn sure I made him DEAF when we went by him.:flipoff2::fire:chair:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsSBwbhsPD0
Since I moved to the Milwaukee area I've noticed that people around here are actually pretty good about doing what they're supposed to do when an emergency vehicle shows up. Pull over to the right and stop (or just get the hell out of the way). In Madison, that isn't the case. If we're just driving around normal speed coming back from a call people will often pull over in front of us even though we don't have our lights on. They also ignore right-of-way laws to let us go first or pass.
Once we turn the lights and siren on it's like the people of Madison completely lose their minds. I have had people race me (try to stay ahead of me because they don't want to pull over). A couple of years back a pack of crotch rocket riders were doing stunts right in front of and next to one of our ambulances (while they were on their way to a rocket rider that had just put himself through the windshield of a minivan. Yesterday on the Beltline highway a guy (on his cell phone of course) PASSED me on the left while I was doing 65 MPH in a 55 on the way to a fire call. As soon as he got a few feet in front of me either he finally saw the lights or heard one of the blasts from the air horn, but then he slammed on his brakes and went off onto the shoulder nearly losing control of his car in the process. It's also not just cars, it's pedestrians too. Last year I had some ghetto-rat look right at my truck as we're bearing down at him (obviously in a hurry, lights and siren, air horn blaring)... what does he do? Steps off the curb and lolly-gags his way across three lanes of traffic right in front of us. Needless to say I made damn sure I made him DEAF when we went by him.:flipoff2::fire:chair: