# What happens if fire trucks cause an accident? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 16, 2014, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481 "2014-10-16T12:02:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481/21 "2014-10-18T15:06:45Z")
My husband has been a firefighter for 33 years. According to him, in most states, the law giveth and the law taketh away. Yes, we are obligated to get out of the way of an _authorized_ emergency vehicle, (Private ambulances don’t always fall into that catagory.) but, if they cause an accident because they were not obeying the normal traffic laws, they are liable. Fire trucks and fire dept. medic units have Opticoms, police and private ambulances don’t. The Opticom changes the traffic lights, in their favor, as they approach. If they light isn’t set up for the Opticom, or for some reason it doesn’t work, they only have the right-of-way if traffic allows. Running a red light carries the same penalties for them as for us, if they cause an accident. In fact, a bit more. If hubby causes an accident running code, he get a day off without pay and a drug/alcohol test. If he/they come back clean, they will be paid for that day, retroactively. Also, they are not given the right to exceed the speed limit, but as long as they don’t cause an accident, they can and do. In fact, most fire departments will pay for any accident they are involved in, their fault or not. They don’t have to, if someone else was at fault, but they often do, just for public relations. That said, they may not pay for the BMW’s damage. Several years ago, one of our local ferries caught fire on the car deck. The firefighters and ferry workers pushed several cars into Puget Sound to put out the fire. They paid for some, but the guy who was smoking in his car, just got to wave b’bye to his. I don’t think they would do that today, because environmental laws have changed. Now, there is no smoking allowed anywhere on the state ferries. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481/22 "2014-10-18T15:26:55Z")
Aren’t they called Fire Lorries in the UK? ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481/23 "2014-10-18T15:28:43Z")
I was a volunteer fireman for several years. Breaking the windows on the BMW and threading the hose through the car was basically a punitive move by the firemen. They had several other options that would have allowed them to hook up to the hydrant without kinking the hose if they had room to do it that way. Was it a VFD or a professional dept.? VFDs in my experience are always more prone to go with the most radical solution in any situation, as you have a significant number of people involved specifically for excitement. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2014, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481/24 "2014-10-18T15:45:39Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2014, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481/25 "2014-10-19T03:19:38Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > They would not be liable for the BMW parked in front of the hydrant. And, I gotta tell ya, firefighters love that shit. They will gleefully break the windows of a car and route the hose right through it. Can’t say that I blame them. Breaking glass is fun. Making an asshole’s day miserable is even funner. He could have had it worse. There was once an apartment fire in my building. There was a fire hydrant next to the parking lot in front of the building, and a car was illegally parked in front of it. When the fire truck arrived, it simply put its big bumper up to that car, put the truck in low gear and pushed the car away from the fire hydrant. I was several floors up, and I could hear gears breaking, and see the rubber being scraped off the tires. And the fire truck pushed it out of our lot, out into the street, and left it there. The police car that arrived soon after the fire truck promptly wrote a ticket for that car, and a tow truck arrived within a few minutes to tow it to the impound lot. So not only did that owner have a ticket fine, a towing fee, and impound storage fees, he also probably had to pay to have the car towed from impound to a transmission repair shop, and pay for those repairs. And the city fire department won’t pay any of that; it’s what you get for parking in front of a fire hydrant. I expect that cost him more than it cost the BMW owner to replace his broken windows. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2014, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481/26 "2014-10-19T04:24:13Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > I was a volunteer fireman for several years. Breaking the windows on the BMW and threading the hose through the car was basically a punitive move by the firemen. They had several other options that would have allowed them to hook up to the hydrant without kinking the hose if they had room to do it that way. Was it a VFD or a professional dept.? VFDs in my experience are always more prone to go with the most radical solution in any situation, as you have a significant number of people involved specifically for excitement. No, it would be to avoid kinking the hose. In 33 years hubby has never done anything like that. He said he’s seen it done once. Most fire departments pride themselves on being the good guys. Bad press hurts that image. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481/27 "2014-10-19T22:16:21Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > [You don’t?](http://www.hwfire.org.uk/your_fire_service/hydrants.html) > > Maybe you’re using a more restrictive definition of “we” than “Worcestershire”. 😕 I was referring to those standpipes at the edge of the pavement in American cities [Picture](http://www.firehydrant.org/pictures/i1/1291.jpg) . Of course the fire service have places to get water from, and as your link shows, they are under the ground with a (usually) yellow lid. Obstructing one would usually mean parking over the top of it, not on the kerb beside it. In practice they are not normally in places where that might happen. The fire engine carries its own standpipe which they simply screw in. I think that firemen in the US are largely volunteers. In this country it is mostly a professional service with some volunteers, known as 'Retained firefighters (gender neutral) > [@TriPolar](#): > > Aren’t they called Fire Lorries in the UK? No - we call them fire engines. The people who use them are now called Fire and Rescue, because they spend a lot more time dealing with the aftermath of vehicle collisions than they do putting out fires. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2014, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481/28 "2014-10-20T13:57:49Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > I was referring to those standpipes at the edge of the pavement in American cities [Picture](http://www.firehydrant.org/pictures/i1/1291.jpg) . > > \ > > I think that firemen in the US are largely volunteers. In this country it is mostly a professional service with some volunteers, known as 'Retained firefighters (gender neutral) You should probably have said “we don’t have fixed standpipes”, then. But yes, US firefighters are largely volunteers (because we have thousands of towns out in the sticks that don’t need and can’t afford full time personnel.) ---
**Author:** ![UncleFred](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f0a364/32.png) [@UncleFred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleFred)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481/29 "2014-10-21T20:31:02Z")
Story; My college roommate ‘Jeff The Chef’ had an accident in which his car was hit by a firetruck. Jeff was at an intersection with a red light. The light turned green and he proceeded into the intersection, at which point a firetruck from the crossing street hit his car. The guy operating the firetruck did not have a proper license for that type of vehicle. Also he did not have the appropriate lights/sirens going. So, Jeff got off with a citation for an ‘unsafe start’ (if he’d looked he’d have seen it coming). I don’t know what happened to the firetruck operator. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481/30 "2014-10-22T10:13:45Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > Fire hydrants in the UK are in the ground under a metal lid, as you can see in the picture from your link. I don’t drive, but I’ve never heard that it’s necessary or even considerate to avoid parking near one here. Presumably, parked cars aren’t a significant problem when accessing hydrants here. Well, the way you access an underground fitting here in vic.aus is by dropping a standpipe into it, but even if that wasn’t the case, the problems are that you have to get the hose around the car, and that you have to walk around the car, and carry the hose around the car, and make the connections. I’ve never seen a hose through a car window except in pictures on the internet, but I’ve seen the men working around an illegally parked car, and I could see why it was illegal. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481/31 "2014-10-22T12:15:22Z")
Apart from the hydrant problem, cars obstruct firefighters in all kinds of ways. I suspect (without any evidence) that the biggest problem is when they obstruct a road or an entrance. A hospital near me has inadequate parking (don’t they all) and narrow service roads on which people park in defiance of the double yellow lines and multiple signs. I have often wondered how the firefighters would deal with that situation - I doubt very much that they would just ‘bull’ their way through. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481/32 "2014-10-22T12:38:08Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > I have often wondered how the firefighters would deal with that situation - I doubt very much that they would just ‘bull’ their way through. Our streets are quite narrow, and one misparked car can prevent a firetruck from making the turn on to our street. There was a fire last year and we were awoken to the sound of the air horn trying to get some to move the car before they pushed it out of the way. After a 9 point turn they made it past without moving the car but they were prepared to shove it with the bumper to make it around the turn. Unfortunately that would have damaged the legally parked car in front of the illegally parked one. I didn’t check to see if they ended up with a ticket after things settled down. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481/33 "2014-10-22T13:40:13Z")
What happens if fire trucks cause an accident? Sometimes [people die](http://www.wxii12.com/news/firefighter-dead-another-injured-in-nc-fire-truck-crash/28100520). Fire trucks (particularly tankers) may have a high center of gravity and be [prone to roll over](http://www.waff.com/story/23720778/first-responder-involved-in-wreck). Sometimes [they escape without serious injury](http://www.wbtv.com/story/25463260/charlotte-fire-truck-overturns-in-ballantyne-two-injuries-reported) but a vital piece of emergency [equipment is destroyed](http://www.wyff4.com/news/local-news/oconee-pickens-news/dispatchers-firetruck-overturned-firefighters-trapped/22906970). Just another take. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481/34 "2014-10-22T14:13:29Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > We don’t have fire hydrants either. [But London is a vacation destination for portable fire hydrants.](http://youtu.be/TG6eBbsY_3I) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-fire-trucks-cause-an-accident/701481.md?page=1)