In this module we are going to focus on one of the more
hazardous aspects of our job that is often overlooked.
Operating motor vehicles account for about 23 percent
of our wildland firefighting fatalities per year.
A report published back in 1999 that looked at the
wildland fire fatalities from 1990 to 1998 showed us that
during that time period, burnovers accounted for more
wildland firefighter fatalities than any other cause.
Now, that has changed. In August of 2007 a second
report was released that analyzed data
from 1990 to 2006. This new report shows
that vehicle accidents and aircraft accidents are
now the leading causes of fireline fatalities.
To address this issue we visited people that
inherently spend a lot of time trying to decrease their
number of accidents and consistently train and
practice driving defensively. First we talked to some
folks from structural fire departments.
Rob Christensen started his career in the wildland fire
community before transferring to the North Ada County Fire
Department in Idaho. Twenty five percent of all
accidents or all injuries and all deaths are attributed
from motor vehicle accidents in emergency vehicles.
And some of that number is just returning back to the
station; so, it's the responsibility of that driver
not to only get us to there, to do what he needs to do to
keep us safe, but to get us back here to the station
safely without any accidents. It's a huge
responsibility and one that shouldn't be taken lightly.
A lot of that number or the bulk of that number can be
fixed through education, proper driver classes like
vehicle awareness, evasive maneuvers,
things of that nature. Often times with seasonals,
when I was a hotshot member, it would be that person that
was awake the most and felt like they could get
us down the hill. So, we would throw them in
the mod and down the windy, single-lane, dirt road
we'd go in the dark. I think driver selection
needs to be very critical. Don't just
find somebody that's had their license the longest.
That's not what I'm saying. Find somebody that
is safety conscious. Find somebody that
wants to learn. Find somebody that takes
ownership in doing a good job-having a clean cab,
making sure that things in back are fastened down or netting's
over some of the loose gear. Find somebody that
knows their vehicle. They know that pre-trip
inspections are important every day even in October
when the season's almost over, and you've been on the job for
your fifth 14-day tour in a row. Somebody that's going to
not sacrifice speed for a shortcut that may cost
somebody in the long run. Another firefighter that
started out in the wildland fire community before
moving to a municipal fire department was Betsy Lange.
Betsy worked as an Engine Operator and also ran the
North Star Hotshot crew in Alaska.
She is now an Engine Driver in New Mexico working for the
Albuquerque Fire Department. As she talks about her
experience and training, try to think of ways that your
local unit can build upon or improve your current
driver training programs. My job is to get
the crew there. I don't have to worry about
what goes on when I get there. These guys are gonna do
most of the work there. My job is to get
them there safely. If I can't get
them there safely, they're not gonna do the work.
So, from the moment I get the dispatch, I don't even hear
what kind of call it is. I'm getting the address.
I'm getting the fire box. I'm committed to getting
us there as safely and as quickly as possibly with
emphasis on the safety. In the city we take defensive
driving very seriously because we have
so many more cars. So many more people who
aren't paying attention. Their music's loud. They're
talking on their cell phones; and so, we need to be real
aware of that. My number one job is
firefighter; but more importantly,
I'm the driver that gets all the firefighters there.
When I was the driver of a Forest Service engine,
traffic wasn't on our minds. We were on back roads.
We usually never saw another vehicle;
so, it just wasn't part of our thinking.
But now, most of our firefighting is urban
interface; and so there's gonna be traffic no matter where
you drive, no matter what kind of engine you're driving.
The city of Albuquerque requires that you have a Class E
license, and that you go to a certification course first.
It's a two-week course. When I took it, it was a week course;
but now they've extended it to two weeks.
You go through detailed training-how to operate the
engine. And then you have to get 20
hours of driving before you can ever get certified.
In the wildland, I think I would require a defensive
driving course before anybody even got into a vehicle and
be familiar with the truck in a parking
lot, in an area with no traffic. But mostly, that defensive
driving class, you can get your mind set...set on the
safety that's involved. A defensive driver in my mind
is one who's got their mind on the traffic, on what is
happening, what could be happening, getting
the big picture, looking around, expecting the unexpected.
Just not letting your mind wander to what
the rest of the crew's doing. Not letting your mind wander
to the scene you're going to, but focused on getting
that crew there safely. So, defensive
driving is a mindset. So, the training I get in
class does turn over to my personal vehicle because you
can't turn it on and turn it off when you get to work.
You're either a defensive driver, a safe
driver, or you're not. And when you get behind the
wheel of a huge, big red truck, if you're
not safe already, you're crews gonna be in trouble.
You can't drive a large vehicle like that
if your mindset's not there. I think that mindset's good
for any driver if...in your personal vehicle...because if
you don't get to where you're going, you're useless.
You can't do your job. And with the more and more
cars and the more urban settings out there, you
just have to be cognizant of traffic, of defensive
driving, of the driving conditions-what's
going on out there. That's
the main purpose of the driver is to get that vehicle there.
You have to make yourself have that mind for safety.
You have to make yourself remember what you're...
why you're getting paid to do what you do.
Get your crew there safely. In the private sector one
business that is exposed to a lot of driving time is
United Parcel Service. UPS looks very closely at all
their accidents not from the perspective of whose fault
it was but rather, was the
accident "avoidable" or not. This attitude may serve us well
in the wildland fire community. To talk about this we
visited with Joe Darden. Joe was a UPS driver for
almost 12 years and has been in the transportation
industry for over 17 years. He now owns
his own company that teaches defensive driving techniques.
His training package was recently
approved by Federal Express. Let's listen to
what he has to say. A little bit of my
background-I started at UPS as a loader; and then after
being a loader for a couple of years, I
drove for 11½ years. Then I became
a trainer, so I trained drivers at UPS for about two years.
Then I ended up actually as a center manager running a
center at UPS again focusing on driver safety and what it
takes to keep the drivers safe when they're behind the wheel.
After about 17½ years in the transportation industry, I
decided I wanted to start my own company and really focus
on driver safety and what I could do to keep people safer.
So, that's how Joe Darden Group came about.
Defensive driving is important because that's what
keeps you as the driver safe from the mistakes that other
people make when they're out there on the road.
You can be the best driver in the world, but if you're not
paying attention to what other people are out there
doing, sooner or later that's going to come back and bite you;
and you're going to be impacted by a poor decision
that somebody else makes. And defensive driving is what
keeps that from happening. If you are involved in a
crash, it doesn't necessarily have to be your fault; you're
still involved in a crash. The question you want to
always ask whenever there is a crash and you're looking at
it isn't whose fault was it. You want to ask yourself
what could have been done differently to avoid this
crash or could this crash have been avoided period?
That's the question that if you can answer "no" to that
question then you as the driver have done everything
you can if there's no way possible
for you to avoid that crash. What you find when you start
asking that question though is there's very few instances
where the answer is "no." Usually the answer is "yes."
I could have avoided this crash because "X."
If I wasn't driving 10 miles over the speed limit, I would
have been able to stop sooner.
If I hadn't been tailgating the vehicle in front of me
when they ran into the car in front of them,
I wouldn't have run into the back of that car
because I would have a good following distance.
I could have either avoided that situation or come to a
stop before I ran into the back of that vehicle.
So then you get into, well, how does that impact me as a driver?
Well, if I am a driver and I run into the back of somebody
and I get into a crash for whatever reason, or I go
through an intersection without looking at that
intersection before I get into it to make sure that
somebody's not running a red light or whatever.
I get into that intersection, somebody runs a red light;
it's that driver's fault if you want to place blame.
If I get injured, my body couldn't care less whose
fault it is, I'm still injured.
So, I'm involved in a crash, my body's injured, and now
I'm the one who has to suffer and go through the
rehabilitation and everything.
If I'd been driving more defensively, even though that
person was causing the crash. I could have looked as
they came down that street and never had any
intention of stopping, stopped even though
I had a green light and just watched them
blow through the intersection. I can honk and do whatever at
that point, but at least I'm not recuperating in a
hospital or worst case scenario dead and now my
family is going on without me because of something somebody
else did that I could have prevented if I
had been more defensive when I was out there driving.
In your Student Workbook, you will find the highlights of
the system Joe uses in his defensive driving classes.
Joe is a true professional when it comes to defensive
driving so let's listen carefully as he introduces
you to what he calls the SMART? system.
And so SMART is an acronym, obviously.
S-M-A-R-T. And each one of the letters
stands for a different thing you're doing in whatever
part of the defensive driving system you're going through.
So the "S" is study. So, you're
studying what's going on around the vehicle among other things.
But that's really the key point-study what's going on,
what's going to impact me, or what's likely to impact me.
So, you're looking around your vehicle all the time.
The "Maintain"... we talk about maintaining a
safe following distance. That's a huge part
of it. Maintaining situational awareness is another part of it.
Maintaining that idea of okay what's going to happen around
my vehicle as I approach intersections.
How do I make sure that I don't get into an
intersection and I'm so close behind the vehicle in front
of me that I don't see their running a red light and now
I'm in an intersection and the lights been red?
So, that safe following distance when you're driving
your vehicle, a safe following distance when
you're parked in traffic; so, that if you get rear ended,
you don't get pushed into the car in front of you.
Or if the car in front of you stalls, you've got enough
room to drive around that vehicle without having to put
your vehicle in reverse; and now you're
trying to back up in traffic. Those are two key points
of maintaining that safe distance between you and
the vehicle in front of you. The "Anticipate" what we
talked about is trying to anticipate what's likely
to happen as you approach intersections, what's likely
to happen whenever you're behind the wheel of a vehicle
with other road users. So, you're looking at what
indicators am I getting? What type of communication am I
getting from other road users? Are
their turn signals on? Are there people swerving in their lane?
Is there somebody that's coming up to an intersection
and it looks like they're gonna try to beat the light.
Any of those types of things, you're trying to anticipate
what is that person likely to do based on the
visual cues they're giving me. It's not predicting
what they're gonna do because you can't really predict.
It's trying to anticipate it based on
the cues that you're getting. And if you're doing the
visual search right and you're looking for those
cues, the more you do that the better you're gonna
be at anticipating that. I always try to say you want
to anticipate a worst case scenario and that way all your
surprises will be pleasant ones. Then we get to the
"Respond"-the "R" part of it. You want to respond
to what you see then. If I see that somebody's
swerving over or somebody looks like they're gonna run
through that intersection, my response typically is going
to be well, I'm gonna slow down, make sure that I
can try to establish eye-to-eye contact with that person.
Establish eye-to-eye contact with anybody else that's on
the roadway to make sure not only am I seeing what they've
got in mind, but I'm better communicating what it is that
I'm gonna do when I get to that intersection
or as I'm driving down the road. So, responding to what we see
when we're studying things. Responding to what
we anticipate. When we anticipate something
and that actually is what happens, our response then
is to typically slow down or move into another lane-take
that path of least resistance. Do whatever it takes to
keep our vehicle safe. And then the last one
is the "T"-the "Train." And the train is typically
just what we're doing right now. We're talking about
driving safety. We're talking about defensive
driving, working with drivers to let them know that it's
their responsibility any time they're behind the wheel of a
vehicle to keep that vehicle safe, to keep themselves
safe, keep anybody else that's in the vehicle
with them safe. When they're driving down
the road what they should be thinking about is "How do I
get from where I am right now to where my destination is without
being involved in a crash? What am I looking at out
here? What's likely to happen? What kind of threats
are out there to me?" Actively searching for those
things that could cause a crash or that could impact me
as a driver that now all the sudden not only am I
involved in a crash, but now somebody's injured or
somebody's killed whether or not it was
technically my fault. How could I have avoided
that, and so it never happened? And the more people do that
they're training all the time, so they're
constantly training. They're training consistently;
so, they're developing a habit. Every time I stop I've got a
good distance between me and the vehicle in front
of me in my vehicle. Any time that distance isn't
there, it makes me uncomfortable because my habit is to have that
distance established. Any time I'm driving down the
road and I'm not at least six seconds behind the vehicle
in front of me, if I'm two or three seconds behind a
vehicle, I'm uncomfortable. And I realize now I can't
see as far down the road as I used to because I'm so
close to this vehicle. All my world now is on what
this person in front of me does. If they decide to slam on
their brakes, I have to slam on my brakes, or I'm going
to run into the back of them. So, always trying to establish
these routines of doing it the same way each time is
what "Train" is really about. You want to train
consistently. You want to train constantly,
and you want to train carefully. By now the wildland fire
community is very familiar with the term
Situational Awareness. The SA we talk about in fire
seems to coincide well with the "S" and the "A"
in the SMART? system. But how do we maintain good
SA or continually "study" and "anticipate' when driving,
when so many distractions are being thrown at us
during fire operations? To look into this we talked
to a smokejumper pilot. SA has been a big part
of aviation operations for a long time.
There are even regulations that require pilots to adhere
to a sterile cockpit rule that limits distractions
during certain periods of flight.
Let's listen to a pilot tell us about his role as a pilot
and how situational awareness is applied in an aircraft cockpit.
And then let's see if any of these concepts can be applied
in the cab of a vehicle. My primary duty is
flying this airplane. Driving is a collateral duty for
almost everyone in our business. Maybe that's
the reason that we don't take it as seriously as we should.
My mindset when I'm flying this airplane is that I've
got a task to do and it requires all my concentration.
For instance, if I had forgotten to turn my cell
phone off and it rang in my pocket and I felt it buzzing
in there and I was in the aircraft, it wouldn't even...
there's not a remote chance that I would react to that.
Should you be any more cavalier driving a car than when
you're operating an airplane? I don't think so.
The hazards...the statistics show that we lose more
firefighters traveling to fires in vehicles than we do
in the fire environment itself.
When you're operating your personal vehicle or a
government vehicle traveling for business or pleasure,
maybe we should have a sterile cockpit sort of attitude.
There's no way ... it's not an enforceable law;
but the statistics show that it's a
dangerous thing that we do. I would say you could make a
good argument that a lot of incidents in vehicles as
well as aircraft are because you're thinking about something
you shouldn't have been. You had lost your
concentration. I think that
when I'm flying a plane, complacency is one of my
biggest enemies. That's why when I pull out
on the runway, I'm thinking about if something went
wrong, how would I react? I do that each
and every takeoff. In an automobile, I don't
know that we do that. Let's say you're headed
down the road-it's pretty straight, pretty flat, good
visibility, dry roads, got it on cruise control, things are
good, the radio's playing. If you're on a two-lane road,
which we often times are, there are vehicles
traveling...gonna miss you by four or five feet at a
closure speed of up to 150 miles an hour, hurdling by
as you're there in that fog. We need to during those
times, and I know...that sounds like a dangerous
thing and I think it is. But we need to be aware of
what if that vehicle comes into my lane. What's my out
then? What if I had a blow out? Would I be able to keep
it out of that lane? Would I be able to keep
it out of the ditch? We need
to pay attention and kind of think about the worst case.
We found an article published in the United Kingdom that
attempts to transfer the concept of pilot situational
awareness into the minds of vehicle operators.
An abbreviated version of this article is provided
in your Student Workbooks. Please get into
your groups, read the article, and complete the next exercise.