Madison driver cutting off my fire engine

[ND4SPD]

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:

[PonyKiller87]

Well it is Madison, the liberal breading ground that manages to screw our entire state on just about everything.


I had similar problems when I drove the wrecker in the Army. We picked up alot of stuff that broke down on I94 on its way up to Ft McCoy. People see you in the big ass green truck with tons of lights on it. Yet they go buy in the right lane hugging the line doing 80 so you have to damn near jump out of the way as your trying to hook up. And my favorite was when your towing a truck (wrecker 49,000 lbs + towed vehicle weight) and some douche bag pulls out in front of you and then just puts along.

People are just stupid I guess, lol.

[Flicktitty]

Thats one of my biggiest pet peeves when i am riding with people that they don't pull over right away. sometimes i think i pull over too early, But being 2 of my brothers and my dad are on the Town of Delavan FD. And my brother is also a cop i hear/see people not pulling over nearly enough.

[ND4SPD]

I thought for sure we were going to get hit last night on the Beltline. We were stopped, tending to "Madison" car-fire (which is basically a car with a coolant leak) and some cabby coming up behind us in the left lane (apparently oblivious to all the flashing lights) decides he's going to swing into the right lane (which I had blocked off with my truck to protect the firefighters in front of me who were looking over the car). Well, he made it back into the left lane about 100 feet behind the truck.

I hate to say it (okay, no I don't) but being that Madison is predominantly populated with self-important liberal elitists... I think that has a lot to do with their attitudes towards emergency vehicles. They obviously feel that what they are doing and where they are going is FAR more important than where we're trying to get to.
Some woman in a Mercedes M class was 20 ft off the bumper (and keeping pace) with our OIC's command "car" (a Chevy 25000HD pickup) while they were on the way to a fire call (lights and siren of course). The jackass was following them through traffic lights, stop signs, and passing vehicles that were smart enough to pull over. Lucky bastard pulled off before they could get a plate or get the cops on them. I watched another car do that last year to one of our ladder trucks... they weren't so lucky though. In addition to us getting their plate, two squad cars watched them follow the truck through a red light (we watched them go through at least two others). Needless to say, they got hit with SEVERAL hundered dollars in fines (which they 100% deserved).

We understand that sometimes it isn't always obvious to people when we come up to an intersection against a red, that it is okay for them to proceed through (if it is safe), or otherwise pull over (to either side)... but when you have these idiots just sit there for 30 seconds trying to figure out what to do that irritates me. That and people who immediately slam on the brakes the second they see us behind them (instead of pulling over first). If Madison would just invest in putting opticom at every intersection it would get rid of 90% of these problems. But of course that's too much money to spend to reduce liability and make things 1000 times safer for everyone involved.

[Holeshot]

Well it is Madison, the liberal breading ground that manages to screw our entire state on just about everything.

People are just stupid I guess, lol.

QTF and besides Madison is party city so most of the populations is :alcoholic:party::haveabeer:goof

[Mr Twigbert]

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).


You can thank Milwaukee Police for training the general public..

[nismodave]

Well to be fair, there are times I see emergency Vehicles flying around without SIRENS and LIGHTS going. And they come out of nowhere.

I have been at intersections with my windows closed, then just catch a Emergency vehicle out of the corner of my eye. Waiting to go through the intersection, or people to move.

Ive also seen Fire Trucks trying to turn left at an intersection, on the ass of the person in front of them, baraing their horns and sirens, and CROSS traffic has not stopped.

So I understand your rant, but I dont agree 100 percent that the citizens are always at fault when then dont get out of the way fast enough.