Safe Speed Forums

If it was found that this forum was right, would you accept it? I don't think so.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Can't remember what service made it but on our SAR medics course we watched a video called the golden hour it followed the following principles:

The state established the system in 1970, largely at the behest of the late R. Adams Cowley, who founded the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore and is often described as the father of shock-trauma medical care in this country.

Cowley was best known for his theory of the crucial "golden hour" — an hour of opportunity in which he said the lives of severely injured people could be saved if they were treated by trauma specialists.
—Philip P. Pan, "The Sky's No Limit For State's Medevac," The Washington Post, February 26, 1998


Much of modern emergency medicine grew out of the field hospitals — celebrated in the "M.A.S.H." television program — of the Vietnam and Korean wars.

"Those MASH units are the predecessors of our modern-day trauma centers. The doctors in those units were saving people who would have died in World War II," Krentz said. "Then they came home and they saw that people were dying in the streets of essentially the same kinds of injuries."

Their experiences produced the concept of paramedics and nurses trained for critical on-the-scene treatment and constantly improving transportation times between injury and hospital, he said. Time is always the enemy because patients in or near shock can die if not treated within "the golden hour" after the injury.
—Robert Locke, "New Techniques Developed For Treatment Of 'Epidemic'," The Associated Press, January 18, 1982


Most important is that MEMS guarantees its ambulances will respond within eight minutes of an emergency call. That's the critical period for saving the life of a victim of cardiac arrest, a severed neck artery, drowning, etc.
—Robert McCord, "Chance to form a metropolitan ambulance service shouldn't be missed," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, August 25, 1985

Do you want any more info ???

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

For every minute a person suffers cardiac chest pain they lose approx one day of their lives.

Hi 2006,

I definitely wouldn't agree with what Brake has said. But there is a
problem.

What matters is the appropriate speed in particular situations and the
whole style of the driving; which comes down then to the skill of the
emergency vehicle's driver, and the training that they have been given.

Here in London NW10, where I live, it's commonplace to see Emergency
vehicles dashing about and the standard of driving is ALMOST always
excellent. But sometimes, very rarely, I do see police cars and vans
being driven dangerously. A few officers driving non-emergency
vehicles, when they hear of emergencies over their radios, then attempt
to drive beyond their abilities. They shouldn't be doing that. Not
everyone recruited as a Police Officer has the ability to drive safely while
ignoring the usual rules of the road.

May I remind you please of what the Chairman of the Police Federation
told the House of Commons Transport Committee on 8th March 2006
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... c97502.htm :

Emergency vehicles do have immunity for speeding, only when their blue lights are being used though. Also the immunity does not extend to standards of driving, so if an officer was driving at 100 mph in a 30 zone in a controlled manner is cool, but 31 mph in the same place in a dangerous manner is NOT cool.

Most drivers have an instinct about what's safe and what isn't... accidents happen because we ignore them.

Q: How many times have we been passed by a copper tanking it down the motorway with no warning signs flashing? A law unto themselves I think we could call them.

Did you also know that there is no legal requirement for a blue-light driver to undertake any formal training in order to use the blues and twos? Reserve fire-fighters for instance use blues to get to their stations to attend a fire, but almost none of them have been given extra training because fire depts don't have to by law!

How crazy is that?

Are you sure they have to have the 'blues & twos' on when they are 'tanking it'? They certainly don't when they are on pursuit training and drive unmarked cars at very high speeds.

Quite right. As far as police drivers are concerned the two "tests" as to whether the speed limit applies or not are firstly whether they are using the vehicle for police purposes, and secondly whether that purpose would be impaired by adhering to the limit, and if both answers are yes then they may exceed the limit.

There is no need for "blues and twos" - in fact it doesn't even need to be a police vehicle.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

I've heard that survival decreases by 10 percent for each minute following the onset of sudden cardiac arrest. If you've had a heart attack, you need to get to a cardiac care unit within 20 minutes or less.

I've '3rd manned' on ambulances in Dover and without going into detail, sometimes every minute does count. In addition, paramedics are getting ever increased levels of new skills, drugs and kit to deal with various emergency events.

Yes, sometimes other road users do bizarre things when faced with a blue light but surely this is another issue which needs education?

Placing barriers to emergency vehicles getting on scene as quickly as possible could see some alarming spikes in preventable deaths.

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"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

No the police don't need to use warning lights on certain occasions, but other Emergency vehicles do at all times... ambulance drivers will get a ticket if the camera that catches them cannot see that blue lights are in use, for example.

Police have certain other immunities, like when a vehicle that does not belong to the police is being used for police purposes, like rental vans/cars/minibuses or when an officer commandeers a vehicle.

Officers have to weigh up whether it is safer to use their flashing lights in order to give a proper warning or whether it is safer to just drive without - some people can panic when they see blue lights coming.

I've seen people do some ridiculous things. My favourite was the chap who pulled into the barriered area of a pedestrian crossing to let the vehicle through only to find that he then couldn't pull back on to the road because no one would let him reverse. Hilarious!

Yes, and, worse still, all those people will have died in vain because the number of road accidents involving emergency vehicles wouldn't come down.

Emergency vehicles arent being driven any differently to the way they always have been. The reason accident rates are going up is the increased crowding on our roads due to underinvestment in the road network, and the gradual erosion of driving standards in the UK.

The increased numbers of "As long as I drive below 30mph, I'm perfectly safe" zombies on our roads are part of the PROBLEM, not the solution:

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

Quote:
"They make strange manoeuvres and panic when they see the emergency vehicle coming towards them."


Thats most of the ones that actually do spot an emergency vehicle - i've pulled in indicating ( a lot of times on to the pavement), and had to flag down a following car on more than one occasion to stop it overtaking me with an emergency vehicle close behind.

It's got so bad now that on hearing a siren , i open my driver's window , so that i can use hand signals as well as indicators.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

The point is, there could be lots of reasons why there are more accidents involving emergency vehicles now. Perhaps the better sound insulation in cars these days means people aren't hearing the sirens until it's too late.

Once again, the true causes are going uninvestigated, the voice of reason drowned out by the "Speed Kills" propaganda foghorn.

In 10 years time, all urban areas will have a blanket 20mph limit with GPS-based enforcement. The implications of fire crews, police and paramedics having to keep to these limits at all times doesn't bear thinking about.

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

Isn’t it strange how Brake focus on just the speed and nothing else - just like the SCPs!!!. Why do they not pass comment on the other common manoeuvres which drivers of emergency vehicles regularly do:
What about jumping red lights?
What about driving the wrong way through a carriageway?
What about undertaking and weaving through traffic?
What about mounting and crossing over pavements? (particularly useful within estates where many roads are artificially blocked off)

Let’s hope they become victims of their own policy so we can get back to focussing on what’s important.
(that was not a death threat)

My point exactly. Why does it ALWAYS have to be about speed?

This isn't even a case of misdiagnosis. No diagnosis, or even discussion, has taken place. It's a knee-jerk response. The truth is, they don't WANT to consider the possibility that noncompliance with speed limits isn't the cause of 100% of the bad things that happen on our roads.

I used to respect road safety groups like BRAKE. Not any more. This sort of illogical single-mindedness just makes me think they have an unwritten agenda, or are just puppets being "told" what to say.

Anyway, I'll put my soapbox away now. What do you people think is REALLY causing these accidents?

Is there any evidence that the standard of driving from the emergency services is deteriorating?

Are people not seeing/hearing these vehicles coming until it's too late and, if so, why?

Could the increased amount of "furniture" on our roads these days (traffic islands, mini roundabouts, chicanes etc) be having an effect?

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken