For the past three nights I’ve been awoken at some stupid hour by either the local fire service or the ambulance service attending the local university campus. I don’t understand why a siren needs to wake up everyone the bloody vehicle passes. The roads are virtually empty at the time we’re talking about. I’m sure this never used to happen: sure, the flashing blue lights were on, but not the siren.
What’s worse, I can see this going on all term, as every drunken joker returns and sets the alarm off prompting a call out.
In many (most?) jurisdictions, that’s the policy. If the emergency vehicle got into an accident with another vehicle, one of the first questions asked is whether the lights and sirens were on.
There are exceptions, of course. A scenario in which lights/sirens may exacerbate the situation is one example.
Or some of the aformentioned drunks piling into a car (as they sometimes do at 4am, your testimony to the contrary notwithstanding) and pulling out into the path of the ambulance/fire truck/other now-wrecked emergency vehicle of your choice.
IOW, just because you don’t see much traffic at 4AM doesn’t mean that those making an emergency response can assume the same.
Do the jokers who pull the fire alarms ever get caught? I can’t imagine the fire department finding this little prank hilarious. If they ever do find the culprits and they have to cool out a couple days in the local pokey, it might stop them from pulling this stupid shit.
Back in my EMT days siren use was optional if we felt it as appropriate for the conditions. Main drags in big cities can still be pretty active even in the wee hours of the morning. Out on a main thoroughfare I would be running sirens too…Once we moved into residential areas We would kill the sirens.
Also in reply to Urbanchic
Operating with lights and siren is not a guarentee of right of way, it is a way of asking for it. Also At least here in CA emergency vehicles are required to come to a full stop at a red light and verify it is safe to proceed though the intersection. Blowing through a red light, lights and sirens running and hitting someone, is the emergency vehicles fault.
You can generally be cited for refusing to yeild, but primary responsibility still lies with the EV driver.
Right before I started one of our local specialized NICU transfer ambulances did this and got clobbered. Dead baby and all 4 crew hospitalized. Ambulance was ruled at fault for running the red.
I know of a couple of cases while I was at university where they were caught. And thrown out of their residence immediately - which basically meant they had to quit uni. I believe the fire brigade accepted that was a big enough punishment.
(There was a huge number of false alarms, however, which were the university’s fault. They installed smoke detectors, in main corridors right outside student kitchens, hard wired into the full alarm system. :smack: )
Back to the OP (and also following on from UrbanChic) - In Britain, no matter what speed an emergency vehicle is going, and what alerts they’re giving, it’s still their obligation to not drive into somebody else. And they don’t actually have any official allowance to speed, or to jump red lights - it’s just generally accepted that they don’t have to follow the rules of the road.
(On the other hand, they get serious training before being involved in high-speed stuff. Particularly the police - I remember talking to one PC, who had failed the advanced driving tests three times. And didn’t see it as a humiliation, just a slight embarassment.)
I know when I was growing up back in Rural Iowa, emergency vehicles would always run with sirens on, even in the middle of the night.
The reason? Our corner of the state has one of the highest concentrations of white-tail deer in the nation, and the combination of flashing lights shrieking siren would help scare them away from the roads. Hitting a 90+ lb deer at highway speeds can cause a lot of damage.
Hell, most everyone I know that’s lived in that area for any length of time has hit a deer at least once.
I’m guessing that Urbanchic is still right, though. I’m sure you’re correct that the siren isn’t a guarantee against liability, but it’s certainly going to look better for the driver if he had the siren on. I can well imagine the first question asked in an investigation being, “Why didn’t you have the siren on?” All other things being equal, I can see the failure to turn on the siren working against the driver, and I can well imagine a company that operates emergency vehicles erring on the side of caution and requiring it.
Just to add to other’s responsese. Not only is it typically policy to run lights and siren on all emergency calls, but in many states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado, for example) it’s technically illegal for an ambulance or fire apparatus to run lights with no siren. Police vehicles have different rules.
Personally, if I’m running emergent, I always use lights and siren. That’s way more liability than I’m willing to personally take.
I can have some sympathy with our friend, +MDI. I live out in the country on the main North-South road through the county and just 2.315 miles from the sheriff’s office. Once upon a time the road was the main Minneapolis to St. Louis highway but since the opening of the all divided lanes Highway of the Saints (St. Paul to St. Louis) it is just another rural primary road. Every morning at 2:00AM, without fail, a sheriff’s car, sometimes two, goes howling past with every light and siren it has going full blast. It does have the effect of rousing me for my middle of the night bladder emptying but seems to serve no other purpose. The occasions I have checked the sheriff’s blotter to try to find out what all the ruckus was about the only thing that shows up is mundane and routine stuff like stray dogs or an unlocked door in a business. My personal view is that the boys on the overnight shift get bored and just go out to create some excitement and gratuitously assist some suicidal racoon.
To bolster my jaundiced view, a couple years ago one of our deputies wrecked a patrol car. I saw his report on the incident. He said that he was practicing gravel road high speed chases! He lost his position in short order.
All I have to say (and quite surprised it hasn’t been done yet) is:
WOOP! WOOP! BEE BAH! BEE BAH! AROOOOO!
Are you awake yet?
At least here, cop cars and ambulances just flash their lights at 0400. Fire Trucks (or at least the person driving) seem to enjoy making as much noise as possible. I work nights on the 18th floor, and can hear a fire truck screaming along at least 10 blocks away, although I can sleep with a power saw going in the next room.
I wonder if in some instances, the potential human damage caused by the emergency vehicle hitting something on the way isn’t offset by the damage the siren is doing to the community’s health, both in the form of more stress taxing the immune system, and unsafe and potentially dangerous driving cause by lack of sleep.
Driver of firetrucks, and formerly boo-lances, here. Late at night, I choose where to make noise, based on knowledge of blind intersections, and where somebody might come from who can’t see me yet, but to whom I can give advance warning with air horns or siren.
Funny siren story: ~0400 I’m inbound to a hospital with a full-term pregnancy that has complications. My partner is in the back, and Mom of the patient is riding the shotgun seat. All lights on-1/4 mile ahead in the low speed lane is a transit bus, letting off a passenger. I’m in the high speed lane, but doing maybe 45 in a 40 zone. The bus person is obviously half asleep, as she starts to cross the road behind the bus, obtuse to my approach. Foot covers brakes, and my finger hits the manual button on the Federal PA100 (you know about this, St. Urho) for just a half second.
Bloooo
The lady was large, but honest to Og, she leapt backwards half a lane and was on the sidewalk, faster than a cat could jump. The patient’s Mom near busted a gut laughing.
I think evolution has begun breeding deer that know not to run into the road out here in California. I recently saw a couple deer grazing calmly no more than 20 feet from the shoulder on I-580 in Pleasanton (a busy, 5-lane freeway).
Eh, you get used to it pretty quickly. I used to have an apartment that was less than half a mile from three large hospitals, one of them the major trauma center for the region. And we were right next to a RR crossing where all the trains blasted their horns in case there was an issue with someone being on the tracks. After the third night, I slept like a baby. It just becomes background noise, and you sleep right through it.
As others have pointed out, using the siren is a safety issue. Not that it can’t be abused, mind you.
I’m reminded of a trip I made to Boston. I was driving through town when I heard a siren coming up behind me. I pulled over, and a fire truck flashed by. I pulled back into the lane and continued. A few blocks later, the driver turned off the lights and siren, and pulled into the fire station.
“Why were they using the siren returning to the station?” I thought to myself. As I pulled up next to the station, I saw the passenger getting out of the truck, carrying a pizza. They really do taste better hot, don’t they?
