Ambulance Road Safety

[dropdeded]

Company I work for has "Road Safety" systems installed in the ambulances. tick tick tick tickticktick TONE!!!!!!!!!

Anyone else drive with similar systems?? Opinions?? I personally think it helps with the new (and sometimes old) inexperienced drivers although sometimes when running hot it gets a bit noisy :roll:

ed

[Medic003]

We also use the Road Safety International system and I do like it. Been using it for around 3 years it is alot better than our older system that we used to have. And yes that noise is loud.

[NREMT-Basic]

I just took EVOC recently and they didnt mention the devices, so i am not familiar with them. I assume they are speed based and not stupid driving maneuvers based? On a related note, do many of you have governor's controlling the max speed on your rigs? Ours are set at 75mph.

[medic001918]

Two of the three services I ride with use these systems and they work well. I have no complaints. They are speed and maneuver based. The thing with these systems is that they must be calibrated properly to be accurate. I've worked with them for four years now and have no complaints. If you drive with due regard, they don't go off that often. And once you learn to drive with them, you can still make good time getting anywhere you need to be.

Shane

NREMT-P

[Crankyemt]

Some of our services run with a safety system that basically works an speed and braking... it's fair but it's not really calibrated for emergency vehicles. Our state system ran on a system that reported harsh turning and braking to the control room and they have the ability to shut our vehicles down. it worked for a while and I think the controllers got bored with it. most of our bigger ambulances are governed. I believe we should be properly trained in emergency driving... I think out here that that is our biggest problem. SOFT RESPONSE IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE!!

[Richard B the EMT]

The last private service I ran with, prior to municipal service, had one of these systems. It was based on "driving with low forces". 2 ranges of force would be indicated by different tones, for accelerating too quickly, braking too hard, or turning too suddenly. The first tone would not register until the 5th beep, the second tone would count after each 2nd.

There is a roadway between Brooklyn and Queens, known as the "Interboro Parkway", now renamed the "Jackie Robinson Parkway". There is a section in the middle of a "cemetery row" where the road has several sharp repeating "S" turns, and at even 10 miles below posted speed, the device would start counting the harder force. As we would be awarded a small financial bonus for the lowest forces totaled during the week, we hated that roadway!

When I initially took the training with that company, I spoke with the creator/designer/owner of the company, as did all of us in that first class. The creator had told us that it had originally been tested with cross-country bus lines (if I remember correctly, it might have been "Greyhound" lines), but our argument was, due to the unexpected maneuvers that ambulances can and do make, as other traffic either reacts, or doesn't react, to the lights and sirens, that it was a bad idea.

We were employees, the boss ruled, we were overruled, and the minor bonuses started coming in. Just for making the bonuses, for the more financially hardshipped amongst us, many requested to be driving the wheelchair coaches, as they never needed to drive at an ambulance's style.

One funny story about those machines: One of the wheelchair coach drivers saw someone who had just broken into his van and broke the device from it's floor mounting under the drivers seat, running down the street, punching the device to make it shut up it's beeping, as he had it tucked under his arm on a tilt! While the thief was arrested, the device was never found. I have this thought that, until it's battery died, that it kept beeping at the bottom of the landfill.

[Code 8 Paramedic]

Two of the three services I ride with use these systems and they work well. I have no complaints. They are speed and maneuver based. The thing with these systems is that they must be calibrated properly to be accurate. I've worked with them for four years now and have no complaints. If you drive with due regard, they don't go off that often. And once you learn to drive with them, you can still make good time getting anywhere you need to be.

Shane

NREMT-P

yeah we have road saftey... and you get used to it... infact when driving in my POV sometimes i think im gonna hear a tone or clicks!

[Just Plain Ruff]

The concept is good and sound but as soon as you tie a financial incentive to it, the concept is invalidated.

I used to work for a service where one medic in particular had a key to the locked box. It was a bad thing.

[mindenmedic]

our company put in gps to manage speed. i have found that because i have slowed down it got me out of the nascar mind frame and i simply drive safer.

[JPINFV]

I just took EVOC recently and they didnt mention the devices, so i am not familiar with them. I assume they are speed based and not stupid driving maneuvers based? On a related note, do many of you have governor's controlling the max speed on your rigs? Ours are set at 75mph.

To the best of my knowledge, our units don't have governors (RPM or speed). I've seen people get units up to the 90 MPH range (honestly, that's the speed of traffic in the fast lane and car pool lanes at time), and I've had a unit going 65 floored up a decent sloop on a freeway [or what ever you East coasters call a limited access highway].

That said, if you're setting those things off while driving l/s you're either going to fast or it's too sensitive. Based on the comments, I'm betting on the first.