It's 4am, the roads are empty: why put on your siren?

[threemae]

@InvisibleWombat

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?

sigh

Often times large departments with a diverse range of missions will need to transfer people to and from different rigs for different reasons. For instance, a dive rescue truck may be stationed at that fire station and manned by the same firefighters on the truck that drove by you. Or, often calls will be cancelled in route, in which case the truck shut down running code after they were cancelled. There could have been a lot of perfectly reasonable causes for this.

[Gary_Robson]

@threemae

Often times large departments with a diverse range of missions will need to transfer people to and from different rigs for different reasons. For instance, a dive rescue truck may be stationed at that fire station and manned by the same firefighters on the truck that drove by you. Or, often calls will be cancelled in route, in which case the truck shut down running code after they were cancelled. There could have been a lot of perfectly reasonable causes for this.

That still leaves two questions, threemae:

[list:1]
[li]If they’re in such a hurry to get back, why did they have time to stop and get a pizza?[/li][li]Why would they be using lights and siren when returning to the firehouse? There wasn’t another vehicle waiting to go out. They weren’t even hurrying out of the truck. They just climbed out with pizza in hand and walked into the building.[/li][/list]

[Gary_Robson]

Bah, humbug. I really need to preview first. Sorry. That should have read:

[ol]
[li]If they’re in such a hurry to get back, why did they have time to stop and get a pizza?[/li][li]Why would they be using lights and siren when returning to the firehouse? There wasn’t another vehicle waiting to go out. They weren’t even hurrying out of the truck. They just climbed out with pizza in hand and walked into the building.[/li][/ol]

[threemae]

@InvisibleWombat

Bah, humbug. I really need to preview first. Sorry. That should have read:

[ol]
[li]If they’re in such a hurry to get back, why did they have time to stop and get a pizza?[/li][li]Why would they be using lights and siren when returning to the firehouse? There wasn’t another vehicle waiting to go out. They weren’t even hurrying out of the truck. They just climbed out with pizza in hand and walked into the building.[/li][/ol]

I know it sounds unlikely, but the most probable cause really is that they simply got cancelled right as they were passing the fire station. When they recieved the call in the first place, they were probably just out grabbing a pizza, which is perfectly allowed in most all departments as long as they stay within a certain defined area.

Honestly, since it was Boston, I’m almost positive that they have an Opticom system which changes redlights into green lights. These systems actually record when they are activated and who activated them, and this record is easily compared to dispatch records. If someone found out that they were running emergent without a call, holy shit, there would be all hell to pay. Certainly the officer on the truck would be fired, and the others aboard would be severly disciplined if not fired.

I doubt that they would put their jobs at risk to save the two minutes to have a fresher pizza, considering that they could have just eaten it wherever they got it from in the first place.