In England They Do Fake Emergent Driving In Public!

[Richard B the EMT]

A specific situation:

An ambulance is sent to one end of the district, high priority call, L&S engaged. Just as they pull into the block, they got canceled, and redirected to the other end of the district, also a high priority call, L&S engaged, but get canceled again, just as they got onto the block.

Local newspaper reports on the ambulance responses, but just calls it "joyriding from one end of town to the other".

Nobody from the newspaper contacted the ambulance service to find out what really happened.

As I was on the wheel that day for those 2 calls, I am still, over 10 years later, sore about it. Even though I was not mentioned by name, many knew when my shift was, and could have besmirched my name for "reckless driving".

[Just Plain Ruff]

You are quite correct about chasing tornadoes!

I chase tornadoes because the voices in my head tell me to!

(I have never met a red-blooded American who would not like to do it. Even my Chinese wife likes it.)

But in chasing tornadoes I am not needlessly

-endangering others by speeding,

-barging through red signals taking right of way from deserving others,

-inconveniencing drivers to move onto shoulders or up curbs where their tires can be damaged, (Imagine that truck getting a flat tire from a nail for nothing!)

-disrupting traffic flow,

-possibly causing minor collisions between others' vehicles,

-annoying citizens with noise forced into their homes and businesses, etc.

When I was learning to fly, I stayed over open farmland.

(When chasing, for the safest and best views, I stay southwest of tornadoes.)

Would be interesting to knowhat other English citizens think if they knew about these moronic joy rides.

So that particular ambulance was not in England?

What does it matter?

The principle remains the same.

It is needless, hazardous, "malpractice".

But in chasing tornadoes I am not needlessly

-endangering others by speeding, You might want to go and watch those tornado chasing programs - they drive like nutjobs

-barging through red signals taking right of way from deserving others, - as a matter of fact, I watched one of the tornado chasers do just that on one of the shows-

inconveniencing drivers to move onto shoulders or up curbs where their tires can be damaged, (Imagine that truck getting a flat tire from a nail for nothing!) - you have a group of vehicles that have revolving yellow lights and driving like nutjobs the other drivers do not know what type of vehicle they are so they do indeed make other drivers move to the shoulders

-disrupting traffic flow, (need I say more)

[zippyRN]

dustdevil

with regard to the point of can't experienced medics act as supervisors on real runs

whereare we expected to find the funding and the time to take experienced medics off the road for up to a year to become educationalists and a driver trainers or Approved Driving Instructors and develop their skills at instructing emergency driving ? Yes CTEs are educationalists to a degree but they are not emergency driver trainers

there's a horrid little point here called " the level of skill of the ordinary man professing to hold the special skill"

Suburban / urban issue - traffic volumes and densities across the UK are much higher than they are elsewhere - there are 'Cities' in the USA who would barely register as a Town in the UK...

in terms of training runs being terminated if you are driving safely and to the System of car control the decision to terminate a particular manouvere of decision can be made at the go / no go point ...

in terms of a lack of proof i think he road safety statistics from the UK tell all ...

[Dustdevil]

with regard to the point of can't experienced medics act as supervisors on real runs

whereare we expected to find the funding and the time to take experienced medics off the road for up to a year to become educationalists and a driver trainers or Approved Driving Instructors and develop their skills at instructing emergency driving ? Yes CTEs are educationalists to a degree but they are not emergency driver trainers

Are your medical educators going out on FAKE runs with paramedic students? Or are they being sent out with field medics for that experience?

If it works for medicine, why doesn't it work for driving? Sounds to me like you guys have simply invented a level of bureaucracy that you now cannot imagine ever living without, even though it serves no valid purpose.

[FireMedic65]

They SHOULD NOT fly over civilian areas if possible.

But now there are fewer open areas and they cannot avoid it because housing has spread everywhere.

Then the new residents have the audacity to complain about the decades-old airfield they moved next to.

Did not a crash recently occur north of San Diego?

But that may have been unavoidable because the houses were on final approach.

Both to avoid needless noise pollution and crashes in populated areas, they should get (fly) away from populated areas as soon as possible.

Military aircraft routinely fly over residential areas and practice targeting buildings. It is called training. They can't fly over the forest and pretend the big oak tree is a terrorist hide out or something. It just doesn't work that way.

In regards to the topic at hand.. who cares?

[Just Plain Ruff]

with regard to the original posters questions and concerns

it works over there, not over here. Who really gives a flying monkey's butt what goes on in a country other than the one you are from.

Before we go about trying to fix someone else's house let's fix our own. We have plenty of things to fix here in the good ole states than to spend any time trying to force the Britt's or whoever else to change their ways.

when our EMS systems are safer, less dangerous places for a new driver to be and until we have a significant reduction in EMS Accidents and the like, let's stop bitching and moaning about what happens an ocean away and concentrate on fixing our broken wings.

Maybe this is something that we in the states want to look into implementing because I know that the last 3 people we hired got a whopping 30 seconds of driver training - "you see the key, turn it and see if the engine starts" if it did then thats the driver training you get at most EMS Agencies.

[robert gift]

to the rest of the board i apologise if this seems to be personalised and instrusive towards Mr. gift , but his repeated inability to enter into meaningful debate leads to the need to ask these questions

so Mister ( or is it Master ?) Gift

do you actually have the slightest clue what you have been spouting about , because i strongly suggest that you don't

your answers strike me as those of someone who those with experienced and knowledge of the theory of education and training delivery would call an 'unknowing incompetent' in that you do not understand that there is a awider field beyond that of your own limited training and experience and do not understand the processes underpinning the preparation for practice of those in other places or whose scope of proactice is different to your own

you state that you are an emergency driving instructor

are you

1. some who holds the necessary professional and legal accreditations to deliver ab -initio driving instruction for reward ?

2. someone who holds a nationally recognised teaching and assessing qualification which allows you to teach in post compulsory education?

3. someone who holds a nationally recognised teaching and assessing qualification which allows you to teach in Health professional education ?

4. do you hold a bachelors Degree from an internationally recognised Higher Education Institution or Higher Education Qualification awarding body which would be recognised as a First cycle completion award under the Bologna Process ?

4a. if you don't hold $ above do you hold a vocational or technical award from a recognsied educational awarding body which fits into the National Qualification Framework at the higher education level ( e.g. the UK BTEC 'Higher National' awards ?

or are you just a proof by assertions 'Training Officer' ?

I ain't never got no college edrucation.

But how does my dismal, shameful, utter lack of education, training and experience diminish the inappropriateness of FAKE emergency runs in the UK?

They remain FAKE.

They expose the public to NEEDLESS risk.

They take right-of-way from others without justification.

They impose upon others the need to takevasive action - without justification.

They annoy others with needless noise pollution.

Nonetheless, regardless of the legal minutiae and attempt at deflection from the real issue - emergent driving training can be accomplished through normal driving, observation and discussion - why defend a faulty tradition and "malpractice"? (Yes, I love coining new woids.)

Do your own citizens know of these FAKE runs? My English friends did not.

Would they object if they did? My English friends certainly do.

When I was in London with a patient, I assumed the fire truck operating lights and siren was on a REAL emergency response.

It never occurred to me, nor to my English friends, that it could possibly be a joy ride.

They understand, as do I as a driver destructor, that such driving can be learned through normal everyday driving.

[FireMedic65]

I need a new roof Ruff, does that mean you will help?

[Dustdevil]

I completely disagree. This must be debated, because it is only a matter of time before some idiot here in the US decides that we should do it too. Why wait until it is thrust upon us to give it any consideration? Be proactive about it! Know the issue ahead of time!

And any attempt to stifle the free exchange of professional ideas with "who cares?" is frighteningly ignorant. If you don't like a discussion, go back to polishing your nozzle and leave the intelligent discussion to the professionals. But it is not your place to tell others what they should and should not discuss.

[robert gift]

But in chasing tornadoes I am not needlessly

-endangering others by speeding, You might want to go and watch those tornado chasing programs - they drive like nutjobs

-barging through red signals taking right of way from deserving others, - as a matter of fact, I watched one of the tornado chasers do just that on one of the shows-

inconveniencing drivers to move onto shoulders or up curbs where their tires can be damaged, (Imagine that truck getting a flat tire from a nail for nothing!) - you have a group of vehicles that have revolving yellow lights and driving like nutjobs the other drivers do not know what type of vehicle they are so they do indeed make other drivers move to the shoulders

-disrupting traffic flow, (need I say more)

Dat is dem.

I would complain about their taking right of way from deserving others, disrupting traffic and causing others to make evasive maneuvers,

forcing others to halt their progress and drive onto a shoulder possibly containing debris, etc. and causing them to try to merge back into traffic from a shoulder.

I stay on the west side, (hopefully) trailing side, of tornadoes, and always park legally on the shoulder.

Their yellow lights are simply to inform others that they may be stopped alongside the roadway, maybe ON the roadway, if a tornado is crossing before them, so that others also looking at the tornado don't hit them.

Here, yellow merely means caution, and, I believe, anyone can display that color.

Yes, a dangerous tornado in front of you does tend to disrupt traffic flow.

I'd rather have a funnel in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy. -Gift, 1976