Today’s enlightenment is about fire trucks. Now I use to know something about fire trucks, heck I was a volunteer fireman for 12 years, and I have driven fire trucks many times.
I don’t know if this is still a true statement but, when I was a fireman, anyone could drive a fire truck to the scene of the accident, medical emergency, or fire, but only a class A driver could drive it back to the station or during a training. Several of us volunteers took the driving test to be a class A driver (back then class A was a big truck driver).
As a fire truck engineer (that is a driver / operator) we had to be very careful when responding to emergencies. We needed to get there to help without having any accidents, and one of the biggest problems when driving to the scene was intersections. Now one would think that an emergency vehicle with its lights flashing, and it siren sounding, would be easily seen and or heard by other vehicles, but unfortunately that is not always true.
As drivers of emergency vehicles there was another device that seemed to get a lot of attention, the air horn on the vehicle. I assume that people hear the air horn and think an 18-wheeler is about to hit them.
Now I should say, the above has little to do with what I want to report to you today. This morning at about 8:00am, my favorite wife and I were in the Ford’s ole Chevy going to the cracker store for breakfast. We had stopped at the traffic light (red light) on Hewitt Drive and Sun valley Road.
That is when we saw a fire truck coming on Sun Valley Road to the intersection with all its lights on, siren sounding, and the airhorn blasting. Traffic was stopped as the fire truck began to continue through the intersection. That is when an SUV came through the traffic light, it suddenly swerved to miss the fire truck, and almost hit a vehicle head on, that was stopped in the turn lane, then the SUV continued on into a parking lot of a store where it stopped.
The SUV driver evidently, did not see, or hear, the emergency vehicle. Luckily there was no one hurt, but how can you not see of hear an emergency vehicle?
That is it for now, I need to make a drink, and get outside for a while, we hope the rest of your day is fun and safe.
Pay attention when driving!
Senior retired person who has driven fire trucks many times, Don the Ford
May today be better than your best day, but not as good as tomorrow!
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