Driver behaviour impeding firefighters’ work: Fenz
Firefighters are calling on motorists to “respect lights and sirens” following “a spate of unpredictable behaviour”.
Southland district manager Julian Tohiariki said poor driving habits were causing delays in their response times.
“What we’re finding is that there's lots of different distractions [with drivers].
“If we’re behind a car and they don't check their mirrors and are looking around, they can quite often miss us.”
Tohiariki said a motorist’s stereo or headphones could be on, and they won’t necessarily spot the emergency vehicle till they looked in the mirror.
The problem with that was that fire trucks usually held their lane, and waited for motorists to show they were aware of their presence and ready to be passed, he said.
“What often happens is as soon as someone sees the lights and sirens, they panic and they put their foot on the gas ... Or they make an evasive move to the left to get out of the way.”
Such actions put the motorist in danger, Tohiariki said.
If a fire truck or emergency vehicle was involved in a crash it would delay their response or take them out of action completely.
“They may not stay very long if everyone's okay because you [have to] respond to a call. But it does happen. It can take them out of responding.”
While they were able to deploy another vehicle to the callout, poor driver behaviour was a cause for concern, he said. There had been a “spate of unpredictable [driving] behaviour” recently, with one firefighter describing a driver’s moves as an accident waiting to happen.
Tohiariki’s message to motorists who found themselves in front of a fire truck was to take a breath and find the most appropriate time and place to indicate and move out of the way.
“Don't do an erratic move.”
He said helpful driver behaviour would include having a good awareness of what was around them.
“Quite often, you can see the lights and sirens in your rear-vision mirror, so checking to make sure of your surroundings quite a distance out and [being able to hear] sirens to make a move early.”
His message to motorists was to make good decisions while driving, indicating and keeping an awareness of one’s surroundings, regardless of who was behind them.