How American Fire Departments are Getting People Killed

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I blame the high rate of using the fire dept. for EMS calls on the privitization of ambulance services. I have never understood why ambulances aren’t a public emergency service like the fire and police departments.

7:00 the point of "emergency vehicles being able to use it for better response times" is even more effective as a defense of dedicated bus lanes because turns out, even the biggest fire trucks are supposed to fit on something meant for buses

The real reason American fire trucks are so big is to transport all the sexy calendar photoshoot equipment.

I live next to a fire station in the UK; Ambulances and police cars are common sights around town, with or without sirens blaring, but fire engines are such a rare sight that fully-grown adults will still stop to watch them drive by with childlike wonder. It's baffling to think of them having to respond to every incident an ambulance could've dealt with on it's own instead.

Another thing about Roundabouts: in Britain you often see roundabouts whose central structure is a gentle mound painted a bright colour. This allows all sorts of less manoeuvrable vehicles to drive over the centre if they really need to, but still provides a traffic directing speed bump to normal sized vehicles

First rule of design: "If you design something for many diferent roles it would be suboptimal for all of them".

It's not just about the frequency of the siren; it's also the fact that they only use two distinct tones, either higher or lower in pitch. This design makes it much easier to pinpoint the direction of the sound and determine the speed and distance of the vehicle, whether it's approaching or moving away. I've watched videos unrelated to fire trucks, where people in the U.S., who've lived there their entire lives, say, "Oh, an emergency vehicle—where's it coming from?" just seconds before it crosses right in front of them at an intersection. In Germany, I can hear a siren from a minute away, and I'm usually confident it's coming my way, with a good sense of its direction.

My house has been hit by cars three times in the last three years. After the first time it happened, we asked the city for any of a number of improvements to prevent it from happening again. Speed bumps were denied explicitly because the fire department would not okay them. After the third time, and a scathing local news story about the city’s inaction, the city is finally going to install some speed cushions next month. But only one on each side of the intersection, because of course, the fire department would not allow for more than that.

We know there's a song called "Fuck THE Fire Department" : https://youtu.be/7JkrJUAg8aI But that takes place in an alternative universe. And besides, it's not "Fuck THA Fire Department" so it doesn't count.

Oh, thank you so much for this. As an Architect and Planner, I am constantly frustrated that great plans for new neighborhoods, or infill, or narrower roads, are immediately rejected by smug Fire Marshals. Nobody feels comfortable pushing back, as who wants people to die!? I am shocked at how many times I see huge hook and ladder trucks screaming down my street to attend to a medical service call. We are all paying for this stupidity.

Love the tldr from a German fire fighter: Lol, we are more efficient with the space, but have the same stuff.

if you'd want footage of fire trucks in the netherlands, check a market (the weekly ones, containing stalls) in older city centers. If you go early enough chances are quite high that you'll see fire trucks drive around it to check that they can get everywhere. In Deventer for example they come by on friday and saturday around 9 in the morning. Granted not every time, but they do often enough for it to become normal. And it isn't exactly while they are in action

Not only do we Europeans have firetrucks for fires, but specializes trucks for specific cases like car accidents, etc.. They don't have to be that big or have to carry everything with them.

Another thing that makes North American fire trucks more dangerous is that due to their size they've got to use air brakes. Which on a long vehicle can take almost a half second from the time the brake pedal is pressed to when all the brakes are fully engaged.

"We need to accept that drivers can be mildly inconvenienced when there's a serious emergency." Straight to jail.

My mom died recently at my neighbor's house (long story), and the requirement is to first call 911. They sent the police, and ems and a full aize firetruck. Btw, the fire station is about 6 blocks away. I mean, she was already dead, they could have walked over. SMH. Also my kids school is next to the same fire station and they routinely speed up and down the street. And a few times a year there is a bike to school day on which the kids ride 2 blocks on that street so the fire department pulls a truck out to block the street for safety. They are also the reason why the city can't install traffic calming on that street so kids could safely ride bikes to school. Its a total mess. Thanks for the video and im glad im not the only person who sees the absurdity here.

I grew up watching a show called Emergency! about a Los Angeles fire station. The two main characters were paramedics/EMS and they drove a smaller truck (like a modified heavy duty pickup) to all their medical emergencies. They only rolled the big trucks for fires and other disasters. I just thought that was how we did things back in the 1970’s.

As a volunteer firefighter from germany i have to agree with the intersection part of the video heavily. I am in a more rural area and we often have mutual-aid type of calls, meaning another department the town over needs aditional recources. Every time we enter an intersection, it is pure pain, people don't see you (because who looks when turning right?), if you approach an urban intersection with multiple lanes and switch the lanes you have to be careful of where the cars move, that people approaching the intersection see you etc. But everytime we get into a roundabout, it is basically just slowing down enough to make sure people see you and then hitting the gas again. Because, at least in my experience, roundabouts have way better visibility. An advantage of smaller trucks is that you can reach places other trucks can't. Our town has a lot of narrow roads, and also long paths with gardens. So after we got a bigger tanker-type truck for structural fires and forrest fires our next vehicle was a smaller truck to ensure we can get through those small paths to give technical and medical aid without having to worry how to get there, and maybe on bigger structures approach the fire from another side that bigger trucks couldn't reach. And the funny thing about our smaller truck is: we put so much effort into fitting all our gear that we will still have room for plenty more. Because firetrucks constantly grow, that is a fact. There is always new things being added and new equipment we have to deal with and new scenarios we constantly have to be ready for. So we wanted to make sure we dont have to get an expensive rework or even a whole new truck in the next few years simply because potential gear wont fit. After recent floodings we added new pumps for basements that can pump out shallow water (2mm depth btw, thats pretty good), we will get new hydraulic and technical equipment for car and machine-accidents, as well as new gear for forrest-fires. We still have room for medical equipment, which we currently don't need but potentially will get in the future. So we wanted to ensure everything fits. And we still have plenty of room that we could use more efficiently. Even on our bigger trucks we constly look for ways to make the space as efficient as possible. Seeing how spacious US-trucks are and how much is not being used is a bit of a pain. My guess is, that those trucks could be about 10-15% smaller right now, if only they'd use them more efficiently. Of course different layouts and trucks would be better, but i am not an expert, just speaking from my own experiences :)

As a teacher in the public schools in the USA, it’s not surprising how firefighters get away with snarky put-downs that don’t have truth to them. They've shown they can’t critique safe road development with arguments based on facts. Worse, they use their position in society to back up crazy thoughts about the need for gigantic roads and vehicles instead of arguing from basic facts. The bad roads and the whole bad network in the USA and Canada will take time to change, but we must use facts. Firefighters must be called out for not having, or not using, basic knowledge. Thanks for building up the case against them by using expert knowledge to put out their firehose of wrong ideas. What they’ve been doing is typical bully behavior. They should be called out for it. Great job!