Emergency vehicle sirens between 11 pm-6 am is a bit overkill

[360]

Rant

I am tired of hearing sirens blaring at all hours of the night where I live. Traffic is nearly null from 11:00 pm-6 am, so the need to scream down the road in multiple vehicles with multiple sirens is NOT necessary. I can merit a quick horn blast at an intersection or stop sign, but not all the way down the road to wherever it is you are going.

Some people have babies and/or children who are trying to sleep, along with most of America catching Z's at this time of night. Just because you are low on the totem pole at the fire station or ambulance station shift doesn't mean you need to play like you are going to a 12 alarm fire, when in all likelihood you are probably running on a traffic accident, fuel spill, or whatever other policy run your department now runs on besides fires.

Run em silent. Your lights light up the night sky plenty to let em know you are coming. It's doubtful there are blind people driving around at that hour.

/Rant

 

[clt46910]

You think there is no traffic at those hours? It inconveniences you that they are trying to get there to save some ones life? Sorry it bothers you, but think about if you ever need them, you will be thankful to hear those sirens coming closer.

 

[mconley]

complaining of sirens when a firefighter or emt going to a emergency a little overkill? By indiana state law we must run lights and sirens while responding on emergency calls. HAVE TO ... no chioce... if we were to just run lights and we got into a accident, All the liability would be on us, even if its not our fault. But let me ask you this, if it was your kid that was in cardiac arrest or your house on fire, would you care what the ones that live by a firehouse think about the inconvenience of hearing sirens? Your Homeowners insurance is prob. much lower than others due to living near a firehouse. Just remeber every time you hear a siren, you should be praying for the safety of the lives of both the firefighters/emts and the ones that are in need of emergency help.

I think your post is extremely selfish

 

[Fargo]

complaining of sirens when a firefighter or emt going to a emergency a little overkill? By indiana state law we must run lights and sirens while responding on emergency calls. HAVE TO ... no chioce... if we were to just run lights and we got into a accident, All the liability would be on us, even if its not our fault. But let me ask you this, if it was your kid that was in cardiac arrest or your house on fire, would you care what the ones that live by a firehouse think about the inconvenience of hearing sirens? Your Homeowners insurance is prob. much lower than others due to living near a firehouse. Just remeber every time you hear a siren, you should be praying for the safety of the lives of both the firefighters/emts and the ones that are in need of emergency help.

I think your post is extremely selfish

^^this^^

 

[mk2ja]

By indiana state law we must run lights and sirens while responding on emergency calls. HAVE TO ... no chioce...
[snip]
I think your post is extremely selfish

I did not know that. I bet OP didn't either, so his post was probably more uninformed than purely selfish. I can understand his POV, but when I step back and consider the larger issue, it probably is better that crews run lights and sirens on emergency calls, so I'm glad the law requires it.

Just remeber every time you hear a siren, you should be praying for the safety of the lives of both the firefighters/emts and the ones that are in need of emergency help.

Ever since my sister's passing, that's what I've come to realize and started to do.

 

[chef larry]

Was in the fire service and if you think there is a lot of siren noise at night, move to Michigan or Ohio, as every member of the volunteer fire departments has red lights and SIRENS on their personal vehicles. 75% of the fire departments in the US are VOLUNTEER and they are also loosing their sleep to help the people in their community be safe, as long as you are up, go join one and help your community as rank on the totem pole doesn't count there. Yes I was a chief and rank is only good for the paperwork and the pay is the same on a volunteer department.

 

[buffalo-springfield40]

just be thankful that the only thing keeping you up at nite are sirens..because on the other side of town,,,someones love one is dying or in trouble....bet they aint sleeping either....go back to sleep..and thank god, the sirens went past your house..

 

[mconley]

I did not know that. I bet OP didn't either, so his post was probably more uninformed than purely selfish. I can understand his POV, but when I step back and consider the larger issue, it probably is better that crews run lights and sirens on emergency calls, so I'm glad the law requires it.




Ever since my sister's passing, that's what I've come to realize and started to do.

I can understand that it may have been uninformed but common sense says that when you hear sirens... someone is in need of help, or someone is loosing alot in a fire. If anyone has had a house fire you know that you can loose everything in a split second. Fire dosent kill, the smoke that the fire produces kill along time before the fire will. So if someone is trapped in a fire, depending on the conditions, they may only live 3-5 minutes before the smoke kills them. I was only trying to make a point that time is truely a important factor. I will give a rundown of the estimated times it will take for the first truck to get to a fire 1 mile from the firehouse at a STAFFED station.

dispatch time - 0000 min
time to get to the truck and get fire gear on and mark responding - 1-2 min.

enroute time ( allowing all the dumb @SSes to move out of your way ) - 2-3 min.

time to deploy hoses and get into the house to fight the fire - 2 min.

time to find the fire in zero visibility environment with 50lbs of gear on your body - 2-4 min.

you can do the math... and this is if everything go perfectly as planned, which will almost never happen.

If the firehouse is volunteer... add 5-7 mins. to get from home to the firehouse. Then they must wait for at least 3 people to get to the firehouse before they have the personel to even go to the fire.

keep in mind fire doubles in size about every 1 min

 

[mconley]

PLEASE ALL, Fight to keep your staffed firehouses, at the one I work for there is a group of people that are fighting a $7.00 a month tax increase on a $150,000.00 home to keep a firehouse open and keeping 16 firefighters jobs. My job is one at risk. We run a fire engine and a Ambulance, and are at risk of being closed. We need all the fire and ems protection we can get folks. If you live in Madison Twp. in morgan county, please stop by one of the two firehouses, and sign our petition to keep our jobs and to keep you safe.

 

[1032JBT]

As it stands right now I have repped everyone in this thread.........except the OP. I know some of you are employed or volunteer in public safety, reps for that alone, but to those that aren't..........thank you for understanding there are more important things in life other than you or your sleep.

 

[Bill of Rights]

complaining of sirens when a firefighter or emt going to a emergency a little overkill? By indiana state law we must run lights and sirens while responding on emergency calls. HAVE TO ... no chioce... if we were to just run lights and we got into a accident, All the liability would be on us, even if its not our fault. But let me ask you this, if it was your kid that was in cardiac arrest or your house on fire, would you care what the ones that live by a firehouse think about the inconvenience of hearing sirens? Your Homeowners insurance is prob. much lower than others due to living near a firehouse. Just remeber every time you hear a siren, you should be praying for the safety of the lives of both the firefighters/emts and the ones that are in need of emergency help.

I think your post is extremely selfish

I was looking for the specific code that requires us to do so, as I know we do, but couldn't recall the specific cite.

360, I know it's frustrating. Have you lived there long? It's been my experience that after a while, that siren becomes just another neighborhood noise. Even if it did not, though, lemme tell ya: I've been in an ambulance-involved motor vehicle collision. They're not fun, and the young uninsured woman who hit us tried to claim that we were not running our siren. It took multiple affadavits to the contrary before my partner, who was driving, was cleared.

Have you ever watched the other drivers when an emergency vehicle other than a police car comes through? I swear, some of them seem to think that the lights and siren mean "pull out in front of me and hit your brakes". Others are paying so much attention to their cell phones or their car radios or nothing at all (zoning out) that they don't realize there's an ambulance behind them for a couple of minutes... then when they do, their first reaction is to hit the brakes. Hard. Most of us want the sirens to be louder, actually, to help overcome that.

Trust me, though, none of us are driving through your neighborhood unaware of the siren or its effect, nor are we taking joy in waking anyone up...We're a little preoccupied with the person we're going to help, whether the reason for their call is a heart attack, a car accident caused by a drunk driver, the guy who's called us nine times this week so far, or the lady who will meet us at the curb with her suitcases packed for a hospital stay.

Oh, and just to let you know, many/most of us work 24 hour shifts, so there's no "low shift on the totem pole".

Blessings,
Bill

 

[1032JBT]

I was looking for the specific code that requires us to do so, as I know we do, but couldn't recall the specific cite.

360, I know it's frustrating. Have you lived there long? It's been my experience that after a while, that siren becomes just another neighborhood noise. Even if it did not, though, lemme tell ya: I've been in an ambulance-involved motor vehicle collision. They're not fun, and the young uninsured woman who hit us tried to claim that we were not running our siren. It took multiple affadavits to the contrary before my partner, who was driving, was cleared.

Have you ever watched the other drivers when an emergency vehicle other than a police car comes through? I swear, some of them seem to think that the lights and siren mean "pull out in front of me and hit your brakes". Others are paying so much attention to their cell phones or their car radios or nothing at all (zoning out) that they don't realize there's an ambulance behind them for a couple of minutes... then when they do, their first reaction is to hit the brakes. Hard. Most of us want the sirens to be louder, actually, to help overcome that.

Trust me, though, none of us are driving through your neighborhood unaware of the siren or its effect, nor are we taking joy in waking anyone up...We're a little preoccupied with the person we're going to help, whether the reason for their call is a heart attack, a car accident caused by a drunk driver, the guy who's called us nine times this week so far, or the lady who will meet us at the curb with her suitcases packed for a hospital stay.

Oh, and just to let you know, many/most of us work 24 hour shifts, so there's no "low shift on the totem pole".

Blessings,
Bill

I hate to tell ya Bill..........they do it to us too, more so in fact in our area than they do to the FD.

Have you heard or seen one of the new "thumper" sirens?? They are pretty cool. They project a deep bass forward with the tone of the siren so drivers actually feel and not just hear the siren. We don't have any yet but our Sheriff's Dept does, they will really get your attention.

 

[chef larry]

Mconley, is the department your on full time, POC, or volunteer? I feel for you and the department, there are hard time in the community, did anyone tell your area about higher taxes and insurance payments along with response times, $7.00 is pretty cheep to pay for the service. Did the IVFA have any info to help? Good luck and why is it those people don't know what they had till it was gone?

 

[robbran144]

PLEASE ALL, Fight to keep your staffed firehouses, at the one I work for there is a group of people that are fighting a $7.00 a month tax increase on a $150,000.00 home to keep a firehouse open and keeping 16 firefighters jobs. My job is one at risk. We run a fire engine and a Ambulance, and are at risk of being closed. We need all the fire and ems protection we can get folks. If you live in Madison Twp. in morgan county, please stop by one of the two firehouses, and sign our petition to keep our jobs and to keep you safe.

sign me up mikey

 

[451_Detonics]

beats the heck out of the gunfire that wakes me up some nights...oddly after the gunfire i seldom hear sirens.....mmmmm

 

[Bill of Rights]

I hate to tell ya Bill..........they do it to us too, more so in fact in our area than they do to the FD.

Have you heard or seen one of the new "thumper" sirens?? They are pretty cool. They project a deep bass forward with the tone of the siren so drivers actually feel and not just hear the siren. We don't have any yet but our Sheriff's Dept does, they will really get your attention.

Really... huh. Color me surprised... I know you guys can DO something about someone failing to yield ROW.. All we can do is sit behind them and try to be noticed. I'll see if my director is interested in the "thumper". That should catch some attention. Great idea... Do you know who makes them?

 

[JBrockman]

360 I understand what you are trying to say and to a point I agree with you But! We are not blowing the sirens and the air horns simply to get our jollies, I have been in the officers seat responding to a call when someone not paying a blame bit of attention started to pull out of the driveway right into our path. You want to talk about a pucker factor! Just remember if we were responding to your residance for either a fire ot EMS call you would want us there ASAP no matter who we woke up getting there! and besides we had to get out of bed and leave our families at home to make the response!

 

[1032JBT]

Really... huh. Color me surprised... I know you guys can DO something about someone failing to yield ROW.. All we can do is sit behind them and try to be noticed. I'll see if my director is interested in the "thumper". That should catch some attention. Great idea... Do you know who makes them?

Yes we CAN do something about it........but if I'm running hot somewhere, normally I have more important things to do than have a snack chewing someone's a** (no not that way you bunch of perv's.....I'm not a big salad fan, esp of the "tossed" variety)



I'm not sure who makes them, but I will find out for you. If you ever have advanced notice you will be up in the Fishers area, let me know and I will try to arrange a demo for you.

 

[Prometheus]

PLEASE ALL, Fight to keep your staffed firehouses, at the one I work for there is a group of people that are fighting a $7.00 a month tax increase on a $150,000.00 home to keep a firehouse open and keeping 16 firefighters jobs. My job is one at risk. We run a fire engine and a Ambulance, and are at risk of being closed. We need all the fire and ems protection we can get folks. If you live in Madison Twp. in morgan county, please stop by one of the two firehouses, and sign our petition to keep our jobs and to keep you safe.

As an OP said in a earlier post, 75% (actually I think it's 70% now) of the fire protection in this country is volunteer.

7 bucks here and 7 bucks there add up. I don't know your area or demographics but I've seen many counties go with full time'ers way to soon and wind up in this position.

Honestly a combination firehouse is the way to go.

As a former Fire Fighter / EMT you won't find any sympathy from me when you try and project those scare tactics to people in order to save your job.

FWIW If the county does pass the savings of cutting some of those FT positions home owners would be looking at a decrease in prop taxes of probably 50 bucks a year, netting 57 a year. The house will stay open, it'll just go back to volunteers. Depending on the call volume of your station, that is probably not a bad thing in the least and you're saving taxpayers nearly 2 million dollars a year in salaries / benefits.

Like the OP being selfish about his sleep, your just focused on your job here. Shame on you for trying to scare everyone into signing your petition.

 

[Bill of Rights]

Yes we CAN do something about it........but if I'm running hot somewhere, normally I have more important things to do than have a snack chewing someone's a** (no not that way you bunch of perv's.....I'm not a big salad fan, esp of the "tossed" variety)

No, I didn't mean you'd stop a response for a "snack" (you probably have doughnuts in the car anyway. ) I meant that you can make a radio call and have someone stopped on your word of what happened (which your dash cam would support, needless to say), but it doesn't matter how much I call, no one will be stopped or cited based on that call; a LEO has to see it for it.

I'm not sure who makes them, but I will find out for you. If you ever have advanced notice you will be up in the Fishers area, let me know and I will try to arrange a demo for you.

Cool, I just may take you up on that. Thanks!

Blessings,
Bill