Was out and about today. Saw people rubbernecking a traffic accident. On closer view, turned out to be a car that had hit a fire truck.
I kid you not. On the return journey, saw the car alone in the intersection. Rear wheel was bent badly enough to mean a broken axle. Which makes the car a write-off: no insurance company will fix an axle, plus, a collision forceful enough to bend the wheel/axle probably also damaged the transmission.
The body of the car was fine, which presumably means no one in it was killed or gravely injured. Which is kind of too bad.
See, this is something you don’t think of when you’re naturally law-abiding and cooperative. You pull over for emergency vehicles because you don’t want to impede their progress to the fire/injured person/whatever. I never thought of it in terms of potential danger to myself. But fire trucks don’t stop for nothin’; not even tricked-out Mercedes like this car. And if you don’t take that law seriously, you deserve what you get.
How did this person not know that you’re supposed to pull over? It’s been a few years since I got my license, but isn’t that one of the questions on the written test? And can you imagine the depth of the poo this person is now in? I’d love to know what the firefighters had to say before the cops even got there.
You’re assuming a lot, aren’t you? I agree it’s unconscionable not to get out of the way of an emergency vehicle with lights or sirens going, but it doesn’t seem like you saw what happened. Who’s to say the trick didn’t plow into the car, or that it wasn’t on the way home with lights/sirens off. There is some history of eratically driven emergency vehicles causing accidents.
Kind of too bad they weren’t too badly hurt? Sheesh, way harsh, IMHO.
It was totally their fault – ran a red light w/no flashers or siren on IN THE RAIN. They admitted guilt, but because there were no injuries, my auto still ran and I was driving a government car there was little fuss over the incident.
No fire truck is going to ram a car. It risks injuring people and damaging the fire truck. The fire truck would have to stop to help the people in the car so it can’t gain time by ramming the car.
While stationed in SoFlo I had the opportunity to work with a few native Cubans. The son of one of them, a FL state trooper, had his arm ripped off by a drunk driver who clipped him as he was in the process of dealing with another drunk driver. And, not too very long ago, a Minnesota first responder (cop? fireman? EMT? Dunno, not important) was killed because some driver decided the flashing lights weren’t important.
If it turns out the emergency vehicle was operating without lights and/or sirens I will withdraw my stance. Until that happens I stand appalled at those who defend the person who DROVE INTO A FIRE TRUCK!!! It’s BIG!! It’s an ugly shade of GREEN! How could you miss it?!?!
Whenever I hear even the hint of sirens, I am poised to pull over. I was taught to do that, and where I grew up (S. Calif.) it seemed like everyone was on the same wavelength. (At least as far as I could see.)
However, after moving to Hooterville, I discover that people are not so eager to pull over. Not that they never pull over, but not as much, or as quickly. I have noticed emergency vehicles have to slow down or stop because the rest of traffic would not get over in time. In fact, I almost got rear-ended once because I stopped at an intersection (because the sound of sirens was looming, and it seemed obvious they were coming). The driver behind me couldn’t have been deaf, and yet they expected to just keep on goin’ and therefore had to screech on their brakes to stop when I braked for the sirens. Thankfully, they didn’t rear end me, and yeah, a few seconds after I stopped, the emergency vehicle sped through our intersection.
I’ve also been honked at because I had the audacity to pull over at the sound of sirens, and the traffic behind me was really put out by it.
I notice the difference each time I return to L.A. for a visit. Almost all cars immediately whisk over to the side at the approach of an emergency vehicle. In Hooterville, though, they are not so quick. Half of the cars don’t pull over at all, sometimes, or start pulling over when the vehicle is already half passed. It’s screwed up, I tell you.
They’re red here. Though I still don’t know how they can be missed - they’re big and loud. If you’re paying any attention to your surroundings while you’re driving then they are tough to miss.
Back in the 1970s, there were experiments that showed that at night, a bright lime-green vehicle is more visible than the traditional red, so many fire departments across the U.S. painted their fire trucks bright lime-green.
And then a bit later, many of them painted them red again, because people said they preferred the traditional red, even if it was harder to see at night.
So there are still some fire departments with bright lime-green, or even yellow, trucks.
I like the European sirens better than the ones here. They have a better Dopler effect, so you can sorta gauge how far away they are.
My problem is that I live a block away from a fire station, so I’m fairly used to the sound of sirens. Doesn’t wake me up, doesn’t make me jump. Not good. But I still manage to get out of the way. Perhaps our totaled friend had the bass turned up so loud in his tripped out car that he couldn’t hear the sirens. Obnoxious SOB.
Cops are horrid here with the abuse of the sirens. I’ve personally witnessed cops turning on the lights and sirens JUST to get through red lights. As soon as they’re through the intersection, off go the lights/siren. Next intersection; same game. This continued all the way down the street, maybe four lights. Maybe they had to get somewhere, but it sure as hell looked like he just wanted to get home extra fast to me.
While I agree it’s possible the car didn’t get out of the way of the fire truck, I’m inclined to believe the fire truck was travelling without sirens. I have a bias against emergency vehicles after my sister-in-law was hit by an ambulance who ran a red light without lights or sirens. She had serious kidney damage but eventually recovered.
-Lil
Around here, people pull over when the emergency vehicle is coming toward them in the opposite lane. I don’t understand that. If I’m tooling along southbound and I see a firetruck heading northbound, unless he’s coming up my lane, I see no reason for me to pull over. Yet people here do that all the time.
Seems lately I’ve seen a lot of well-meaning people trying to pull over to let an emergency vehicle pass, but failing to find anywhere suitable to pull into and crawling along looking, or pulling over but not far enough to let the vehicle pass.
I’m willing to believe that sometimes the people are at fault. I’m a delivery driver for a pizza place. I’m all over town at different times. Whenever I see or hear sirens I pull over. I, too, have almost been hit by people behind me not noticing that there are flashing lights speeding up behind us. I pull over, people behind me speed up and pass me and keep going. I’ve seen an SUV actually RACE a firetruck with its lights flashing and horn blaring to a stop light. I watched in horror as the firetruck barely missed the stupid person driving the SUV. This is not the first time I’ve seen this sort of thing, either.
Odd, FCM. Here in Gainesville, not only do people going the opposite direction not pull over, but people going the same direction routinely fail to pull over as well. It’s not a mentality I understand at all, but it amazes me how often I see fire trucks or ambulances, lights flashing and sirens blaring, just sitting stuck in traffic because no one is smart enough to pull over.
Or, to be more accurate, some people pull over and everyone else jumps out in front of them, gets stuck at a light, and now both lanes of traffic are blocked and the firetruck is just sitting there.
My mom has been rear-ended by police cars twice. In neither case were they responding to an emergency, they just were just out driving, and did not pay attention as she slowed to make turns. Both officers were from the town I grew up in, so I wonder if they’ve gotten better drivers by now.
Commonly this is done because of the panic when someone sees a cop with lights on behind them. There is even more of an “Oh $h!t” factor, (followed by crazy manuevers) than with other emergency vehicles.
This is also why you will see a cop fly by you at 80 mph without lights; they aren’t just trying to get to lunch faster.
Generally this type of response is against departmental policy, (Though policies vary) so it will be the cops ass if he has a wreck without lights. However, since the likelyhood of a wreck increases with the use of lights, it is a calculated risk. (And his/her ass would STILL be on the line anyway)
I saw a car run a light and hit an ambulance, down in Gary, and when the car skidded to a halt, a few feet from the corner where I was standing. The car’s bumper, headlight, and a front quarter panel were gone. The doors of the ambulance came open and it nearly tipped over.
A couple of months ago, a police car speeding, int the middle of the night, without lights or sirens, killed two people in Portage.
Off topic – for which I apologise in advance – but I just needed to note this:
Someone expresses surprise that Fire Engines might be green and Duck Duck Goose replies with an explanation and a list of references. This is why I love the SMDB.
They must put that trick in the handbook or something, because I once saw a police car do almost that exact thing. Stopped at a red light at a busy intersection in poor weather conditions, she suddenly decided she had places to be, chirped her siren once, no lights, and took off. Collided with another car in the middle of the intersection, unsurprisingly. The poor woman driving the other car.
I used to wonder why the fire trucks in the next town over were that puke-y green color. Now I know.
This is why I love the SMDB.