Apparatus Safety from Front… …to Back
SAFETY
Photo by Tom Brennan
Drivers Ed
Picture a probationary firefighter who’s getting a first taste of the skills of the job. In many departments, this person will be trained in specialized situations ranging from hazardous materials spills to fire suppression in high-rise buildings.
But when it comes to emergency driving, the firefighter’s first introduction to the subject may be when he gets out of the foreign subcompact he drives to work and steps behind the wheel of an 18ton piece of apparatus.
Often we forget that, to be of use in an emergency, firefighters and apparatus must arrive at the scene unscathed. The officer riding the apparatus must be able to concentrate on the conditions that will greet the fire company when it arrives, rather than be worrying about whether the crew will get there at all. And the department must be able to concentrate its resources on fire safety and suppression, rather than let them be drained by liability lawsuits stemming from apparatus accidents.
The large print of the law says we can do anything we want when traveling under flashing lights and siren in a true emergency; the fine print takes all those rights away. The best way to avoid the charge of negligence—and to get firefighters to the scene safely—is to train for emergency driving.
The Hillsborough County (Fla.) Fire Department has recently launched a program that aims to prepare firefighters for the road just as other training prepares them for the fireground. It does so by integrating several existing systems of defensive driving and by approaching the subject on two levels.
Driving defensively means expecting and allowing for the mistakes of others. It begins with the proper attitudes and habits—subjects we cover in the first level, the Probationary Driver Training Program. This is incorporated into the fire department’s orientation for recruits, which covers all the basics of firefighting.
Attitudes, the lecture points out, will influence a driver’s reactions. Having a fight with one’s spouse just before going on duty, for example, is likely to introduce an element of hostility into a person’s driving. Longer-term attitudes, such as overaggressiveness, overexcitement, and lack of respect for another driver’s right-of-way, are even more crucial to performance.
As we develop the emergency driving program further, we’d like to introduce stress management techniques to counteract such negative attitudes. At present, we do tell our firefighters (in the program’s second level) to collect their thoughts when they get behind the wheel of the apparatus. They learn to do this by counting to three as they’re buckling their seatbelts, using those moments to think about where they’re going and how they’ll get there.
The first-level lecture also emphasizes that habits aren’t inherent; they’re developed over time, and they can be changed over time. A habit firefighters have to alter is one they usually learn in high school driver’s education: placing their hands at the “10 and 2 o’clock” positions on the steering wheel, then crossing them over each other when turning the wheel. We break recruits of that habit, teaching them instead to keep their hands at the 9 and 3 o’clock positions or at the 4 and 8 o’clock positions, and to shuffle their hands when making a turn. This gives them greater control.
The first level of training also covers laws; state, county, local, and departmental regulations; driver responsibilities; vehicle characteristics; and apparatus care and maintenance.
After completing the Probationary Driver Training Program, a firefighter must accumulate 20 hours of nonemergency driving and complete a written examination to qualify for the second level, the Emergency Evasive Driver Training Program. It’s in the fourto six-hour lecture portion of this level that the department integrates three systems of defensive driving, which are familiar to many people but seldom taught as a package.
The first is known as IADE, for “identify, analyze, decide, and execute.” The driver learns to spot potential hazards, such as a parked car that may be getting ready to pull into traffic (identified by the fact that its front wheels are turned toward the traffic lane). The next step is to analyze what actions the driver can take to avoid hitting the car if it does pull in— either slowing down or moving to the left. The driver then decides to do that, and executes the action.
The obvious intent of this and the other systems is to prevent accidents altogether. But we teach firefighters that, if they realize a collision is inevitable in a given situation, they should “drive into the accident” rather than trying to avoid the unavoidable. Here the IADE system will help the firefighter choose the action that’s least damaging. If, say, a shoulder gives way as a fire truck is driving on it, this can mean the difference between flipping the truck and being able to drive it away after doing some limited amount of damage.
The ability to identify potential hazards, as IADE requires, comes from adding the Twelve-Second Rule. The firefighter learns to pick an object from the horizon on which his attention is focused while driving. If the vehicle reaches it in less than 12 seconds (measured by counting “one-thousand-one, one-thousandtwo…”), the driver’s not looking far enough ahead.
Finally, the Smith System takes IADE a step further, to the point of accident prevention. It consists of five precautions:
- Aim high in your steering. By looking way down the road, you avoid hazards and keep your steering on a straight track.
- Get the whole picture; this is what gives you the opportunity to identify hazards.
- Keep your eyes moving. Apparatus drivers are prone to being “siren-sighted”—having the tunnel vision that arises from thinking solely of getting to your destination in a hurry and believing everyone else will get out of the way. If someone doesn’t, you won’t see them in time if your eyes are focused in one place.
(Photo by Alexander C. Black)
- Allow an out. By knowing what vehicles are around you and how close they are, you can make sure you’ll be able to get around them if something unexpected happens.
- Keep your vehicle visible. One way to do this is by driving as close to the left edge of your lane as safety allows. By doing so, you fill the rearview mirror of the vehicle ahead of you, helping to ensure that the driver of that vehicle knows you’re there.
Because a lot of the driving done in fire apparatus is emergency driving, there are also two major “offensive” tactics. But they, too, boil down to defensive driving. We disabuse beginning apparatus drivers of the idea that their job is to get to a fire in a hurry; their job is to get there proficiently—in the minimum amount of time possible while still arriving safely. So it might be more accurate to call the two “offensive” tactics “defensive driving in an aggressive situation.”
Lane-changing is the first. The driver needs to maintain a constant speed to avoid three things: confusing other drivers, jostling the firefighters riding on the apparatus, and putting needless wear and tear on the vehicle. This is nearly impossible in traffic, but the task becomes more manageable if the driver looks far enough ahead—one of the defensive driving tips. Then the driver changes lanes as necessary to pass slower vehicles.
The second “offensive” tactic is for crossing intersections against a traffic control device, and again it’s actually defensive driving—getting the big picture and making one’s own vehicle seen.
After coming to a full stop and accounting for the traffic in all lanes, the driver should take the apparatus forward just enough that everyone can see it. Now the firefighter has taken control of the intersection and can cross. These things have to be done because red lights and a siren only request permission; they don’t guarantee that other traffic is going to get out of the way.
On the blacktop
On top of the in-depth examination of defensive driving, the Hillsborough training gives a brief course on vehicle dynamics. Most of this is common-sense material on the physical forces of momentum, inertia, and centrifugal force. But when the class moves out onto the driving course, one demonstration helps firefighters understand why, in the majority of driving techniques we teach, they never touch the brakes.
We take a piece of apparatus down a straight stretch at 5 to 10 mph, and as the vehicle passes a marker, the driver takes his foot off the accelerator. Going through the same procedure again on a curve, the apparatus stops in less distance, showing how physical forces have affected its motion.
National Fire Protection Association Standard 1002, “Fire Apparatus Driver/Operator Professional Qualifications,” is an excellent foundation on which to build this practical portion of the second-level course. It describes exercises involving a serpentine course, the crossing of alleyways, and parking at a dock from the driver’s blind side.
Hillsborough has added a lanechanging exercise which enables the instructor to see if the student has a quick reaction time and is able to maneuver the apparatus. At the beginning of the course, the instructor lays out a single lane which is just a foot wider than the apparatus and about 30 feet long. After a 65-foot gap, the lane continues, with a parallel lane on each side. The student drives into the first lane at 30 mph and maintains that speed throughout the course. At the end of the single lane is a set of lights, which the instructor uses to tell the student which of the three parallel lanes to drive into after crossing the gap.
After successfully negotiating the NFPA 1002 and lane-changing courses, a firefighter is ready to get driving experience on city streets and on highways. This is strictly in nonemergency situations.
Only after completing the entire program does a Hillsborough County firefighter qualify for a fire department driver’s license. In a department that’s half paid and half volunteer, that license is necessary for a paid member who wants to become a driver/engineer and for any volunteer member who wants to drive apparatus.
All new recruits will go through the emergency driving program. Veterans who earned licenses before some of the new elements were added will all, we hope, go through the program sometime in the future.
We believe any firefighter who gets behind the wheel of an 18-ton truck should be ready to respond to an emergency, not create one.