On highway 373!  I'm a volunteer firefighter and was on my way to a fire. Well i'm in my personal truck but have my bright lights as wigg wagg lights and my brake a reverse lights flash up and down.. anyway I'm going about 95mph in a 75mph ETA about 7-8 minutes next thing I see is blue lights... a cop pulls up in front of me, and 2 behind me.. i'm like WTF! is going on here.. the cop whos behind me gets out and walks up to my and says "wheres the fire" I look at him and say on highway 373 and he looks at me funny and says your joking right? I say HELL NO! and your delaying me.. I'm a volunteer firefighter and WAS on my way to the fire when you pull me over.  He gets back in his car and gets on the radio I presume and runs back to me and says "My bad" and the 3 cars pull off... well I start hauling ass again and about 7 minutes later arrive on the scene.. they have the fire under control and when I run up to see whats going on chief of my district told me they that 2 people are dead and if someone was here 5-6 minutes ago they might have lived... I don't know what to say to him..


I still don't know what to say to anyone.. I guess I'm thinking its the cops fault for pulling me over, but he was just doing his job..

No, of course it's the cops fault. Blame the cops it's fun, it's trendy and it's easy.

That's ashame that that had to happen.  What all requirements does your state have for volunteer firefighters as far as equipment needed to run hot in personal vehicles?

Hmmm,, I'm sorry to say this,  but judging from past "evil cop" posts from other people, My bullschitt meter is pegged to the max. Since two people died,  there is most likely a link to a story somewhere. Could you give me a location please? I'd like to research this.

His profile says he's in Mississippi.
That ought to help

I've been asking for a B.S. smiley for a long time but so far all we can do is just say he's full of B.S.

I'm not calling anybody anything yet,  but I would like more information.

if he had been able to avoid the cops by pulling around them, ect. enacting a highspeed pursit and stopped at the fire and tried to rescue the people. would the police have bothered with him then? doubt it(they probably would have helped) but i dont know the road or its conditions. and im not leo. just wondering.

I don't know of any cop that's going to pull over a vehicle that's going "Full Lights and/or Sirens"

If anything they'll follow/escort you to your destination and get on the air with dispatch/911/central-radio to find out what's going on.  

Nothing like public safety worker endangering the public.................

Also speeding, no big deal if you have a legal justifictaion to do so. Fire/EMS volunteer on the way to a call. Sounds reasonable if their chief ok's that kind of response and the driving isn't reckless.

Eluding the police=felony. Bye-Bye no acceptable excuse.

Let's see, you are running down the highway at 95mph. You are flashing your headlights. You have no rotating light or anything else to mark you as a volunteer fireman.
What do you expect? Most of us ane just not up to the standards of Miss Cleo, so we have to stop you to find out why you are driving so crazy.

I have wigg wagg lights on the front and back.. white and red and a orange caution rotating rack on a headache rack on the bed of my truck..

I'm not ragging cops or anything but the same cop(narc) is a total dickhead too.. I mean if your going 36 in a 35 he's gonna write you a ticket for going 46 in a 35  he's a total dick

but just like i said  i guess i should blame the cop but he was doing his fault i guess its no ones fault  and i dont want anyone flaming me either cuz i dont take no shit

I'm not going to judge your motives for posting this topic...BUT, the timing appears to be bad.  Time to fire from stop site is 7 minutes.  When you get there the fire is already under control.  When did the fire crew with the equipment and the time to control the fire get there?  Was that what the chief was referring to?  Somebody getting there 5 or 6 minutes before the fire crew?  And finally, just how long were you stopped waiting for the officer's "My bad" and what could you have done even if you were the first one there with nothing but your turnout gear, a fire extinguisher (assuming you had one) and the determination to do good?

Fill us in on the whole story, please...

Sukebe,

[img]www.ar15.com/members/albums/Dave%5FG%2FBS1%2Egif[/img]

It's in my photo album in my profile.

LMAO, I love that one. How can I use it?

Click on the "Profile" head on this post.  Click on Photo Album 1.  Scroll down until you find the BIG Bull pic.  The posting code is below the picture.  Copy and paste it as an image into any post you want too.

Non LEO weighing in here.

What is the basis for the chief's MEDICAL determination that "5-6" minutes was the difference between life and death?

No offense, but I really don't think he's qualified to make that call under any circumstances, heck, most coroners can't call a time of death anywhere near close to that.

Wrongo there Waverunner. One fine Sunday morning about 6 a.m. my partner and I were cruising slowly along Maspeth Ave. when we hear a siren. Lo and behold an unmarked Caprice comes barreling around the corner with siren blaring and dashboard light just flashing away. That is until he saw us. Then he shut down all his emergency equipment and slowed down to granny speed. Now being curious types, we pull in behind him and put on our real emergency lights and siren. Our hero pulls over and we do the traffic stop routine. "Who are you and why are you playing cops and robbers we ask." He tells us he`s a FDNY dispatcher and he`s late for work.

Dispatchers usually don`t have private vehicles that look like unmarked police cars with emergency equipment. By now my partner, a sharp young troop is starting to turn red. Not good for our friend. "Why do you have what appears to be an unmarked car with emergency equipment" I say. "Well, I`m a vollie also." Most people don`t know there are 2 Volunteer Fire Dept`s in Queens. Now my partner is blowing steam out of his ears.

It seems we`re nowhere near his dep`t. I know because I lived a couple of blocks from his firehouse. I didn`t recognize him and he of course didn`t know who I was. I got my partner calmed down, after all, we weren`t the ones who were awakened by a siren at 6 a.m. on a quiet Sunday morning, just the neighborhood residents.

His paperwork was in order including his FD I.D. so we made sure he`d be late for work and let him go with a warning that if I ever caught him doing it again I`d impound his car.

I had to pass his vollie house every day and saw the Caprice many times. Never heard the siren again. He may have heard a maniacal laugh once in awhile though.

Same here. I pulled over a Dodge pick-up with wigwag headlights to find out WTF. He was VFD, but instead of being enroute to a fire, he was late to his kid's little league practice.

I'm not "picking on" ALL volunteer firemen. But I do find that ones in my neighborhood drive like f*cking a**holes in there private cars to get to the firehouse.

I live ten blocks from an volunteer firehouse and most of THESE morons do about 60mph down residential streets, take traffic lights as if they weren't there and they are coming from every direction.

Onto ONE of my stories with them.....driving on my way home with my wife and two five year old nephews. I come to a small intersection with a green traffic light, as I'm in the intersection, making a left turn(in the direction of the firehouse), I hear someone honking, look to my right and see a pickup truck barreling down on me, flashing his highbeams. I don't know who the hell this is, a maniac, an out of control driver? I don't know, so I try to get out of his way, but there is an older lady crossing the street with her dog, so I can't move anywhere. This guy in the pickup still blarring his horn at me. So you drives in front of me, missing this old lady by a foot, scarring the hell out of her, she trips on the curb, but grabs onto a light post and doesn't hit the ground. As this pickup is passing me, he hits my front right bumper, causing very minor damage and he keeps going! Now I'm so ferious, I take is plate number.

I take my wife and the two boys to my house and drop them off. Then I go to the firehouse and wait about twenty minutes. The fire trucks return, I cool down a bit, I find HIM and here is the TALK we had:

[blue]ME[/blue]: Remember me?
[red]Volly[/red]: Oh yeah, your the IDIOT that WOULDN'T get out of my way!
[blue]ME[/blue]: I COULDN'T get out of your way. So you nearly kill me, my family, the old lady crossing the street, hit my car and leave! And your a firemen?
[red]Volly[/red]: Thats not what happen, I didn't hit you.
[orange]FIRE CAPTAIN[/orange] My guys would't lie, get out of MY house! [:(!]

[;D] No problem, I left the firehouse, got my wife, found the old lady(she lives up the block from me) called the local PD(not 911) to the firehouse. We all met there, spilled our guts to the PD. Yada, yada, yada,  PD did an accident report(for me) and a complaint report(for the old lady).

This was one of numerous incidents I had with them. And I have just recently found out a few of my neighbors also had problems with these volunteer firemen. These guys driving recklessly and without regard to human life has to stop.

Alright.. an UPDATE... I talked to a few people who were on the scene that night and they said the chief pulled up right before I did.. and that they DIDN'T have it under control.. well not out of hand but not under control either.  So obviously somebody made a fuckup and gave me the wrong story or something.. the 2 people ARE dead.. but according to the coroner they were dead before I even left my house...

I talked to the cop and we talked about that night and he said he was sorry and everything, but I told him not to worry about it and he was doing his job. We actually went to the range the other day and shot pistols all day [:)]   I DIDNT MEAN TO BASH ANY COPS!.. i like cops! a lot of my friends are county or city cops..

One thing to remember...many firefighters and cops are so focused on the goal of saving lives that they forget about their driving.  Not saying that it's an excuse to endanger others but something to think about.  Maybe a solution is to get better driving training for the firefighters (and cops).  Of course that takes money and the welfare state would rather give it to some lazy people who would rather watch TV than get a job.  Something else to consider....most volunteer firefighters in my area make almost nothing to do it.  They do it for a wide range of reasons but money is certainly not one of them!!  Without volunteer firefighters there would be no fire departments.  They do us a very useful service so, while criticism may be accurate and true, be cautious in how you do it.

Vermillion,

Where did you get your training and certification for high speed driving on a public highway, in your personal truck?

A pearl of wisdom from my first training officer...

"You can't help anyone if you crash enroute and kill yourself or someone else..."

Guys, after looking at a couple of Vermilion's posts,  I find out he's 19 years old, has a birthday next month, lives at home with mom and dad, and likes to clear his house with an AR when things go bump in the night. None of this is bad, (Heck I was there once myself.  Ingram VFD after High School)  It may just show a need for more experience.

A young man choosing to serve his community as he turns 20 is a good thing and deserving of no small praise in this day when so many young people are so tightly focused on [b]ME[/b] rather than "we".

Just temper the speed, especially in a pickup.  Pickups are notoriously poor vehicles for high speed driving due to their handling and braking characteristics.

yea.. my chevy's brakes suck.. I have taken police manuever courses and passed with excellent scores

Had that happen to me you should have seen his face when i gave him a location in a town 20 miles from where i was and that i was rushing to meet my Company coming to that town from a station 20 miles the other way! It was a Block party 6 downtown businesses! "Hot time in the Old town tonight..."

P.S. Pa. only lets you run a blue light, no audible, and traffic does not have to give you the right of way! In fact most people will intentionally slow you down if they see your blue light and there is nothing you can do about it!

In VA, we can have up to two red or red/white lights. Or a lightbar (counts as a pair of lights in Commonwealth logic). No audible devices. No harrassing drivers and no breaking of traffic laws. This includes no exceeding the posted speed limit.....

Scott

Fireguy3, the problem is nobody uses their rear view mirror. Considering the drivers in Pa. usually do 25-30 in a 35 doesn`t help either.

Yes, I live in a small Pa. town now. I figure my house would be a total loss in a fire. I don`t blame the vollies, in fact the Chief lives in the next house from mine. His father in law lives in the next house and is one of the engine drivers. So by the time they go get the engines and come back I guess I got a problem.

I just hope I`m not home (plenty of ins.) and my gun safe survives along with the garage.

Can Someone explain to me how exactly one copies DaveG's Bullshit icon listed above??

Thanks in advance.

Click on the "Profile" head on this post. Click on Photo Album 1. Scroll down until you find the BIG Bull pic. The posting code is below the picture. Copy and paste it as an image into any post you want too.

Here's the code.  Replace the "{" with "[" and "}" with "]":

{img}www.ar15.com/members/albums/Dave%5FG%2FBS1%2Egif{/img}

It looks like this:[img]www.ar15.com/members/albums/Dave%5FG%2FBS1%2Egif[/img]

[img]http://www.printroom.com/_vti_bin/ViewImage.dll?userid=Vermilion&album_id=76783&image_id=5&courtesy=1[/img]

This is my truck and the same as in that night.. my high beams are WIGG WAGG and my regular beams are still on.. and my brake and reverse lights flash up and down.. so thats white up front and red and white in the back

Nice truck...

thanks...

I dont work wrere there are volunteer firefighters. But we dont let even full time firefighter roll code to work, unless they are in a big red fire engine equiped with lights and a siren.

Thanks Dave.

I am a vollie in east TN. and we aren't allowed to run emergency to any call.  Once we are stationary, we may turn on reds and whites but not unless we're sitting still.  The Chief doesn't like us using four-way flashers b/c of insurance concerns.  If we're caught using either, we are punished accordingly.  If we break the law en route, we pay for it.  Makes perfectly good sense to me.

Mikie

when i was a on a vfd i was told by the chief,i could not exceed the speed limit with my red light,i could pass on the right or in a center turn lane,but if i was involved in an accident it was automaticly my fault(the red light)

95 is a little much i think

garand shooter ,where from in nc?

i'm near fayettenam

Whereabouts, if you don't mind my asking?

Zak, I'm in a little town in Jefferson County about 30 minutes east of Knoxville.

I live just east of Greeneville, and work in Newport, myself.

Where do you shoot?

Im a full time professional fire/medic, and even when we are in our fire or EMS apparatus, going "lights and sirens", we are required to stop at red lights/stop signs before cautiously proceding through, and "by the book" we are only supposed to be allowed to drive 10 MPH over posted limits,...when safe to do so.

Liquorbox,  Have you ever been to the Ant Hill Shooting Club down near Southport, NC?  I'm from around that area.

 Vulcan94