Get out of our way, really!

What is the deal with drivers that don't know what to do when a fire truck is coming their way? I believe in the testing process to gain a drivers license this subject is addressed. Now I'm not sure, it may no longer be covered but I haven't heard about that.

Let us cover it briefly. Pull your freaking car over to the right and stop! Any questions? I didn't think so. You would not believe how people react to this very common situation. There seems to be an endless combinations of options though. But first let's look at it from the stand point of the driver engineer, that's the guy driving the big red truck (BRT).

A driver engineer is a highly skilled person. They have been through a rigorous testing process just to get the privilege of dealing with you idiots in traffic. Becoming a driver is a promotion, they really want to drive the BRTs, not me. The urge to simply smash into other cars was just too tempting to me.

There is a drivers academy that must be attended a successfully completed to get the job. A candidate spends hundreds of hours training to drive and operate a BRT. Driving isn't their only function they also have to do all the stuff at a fire scene like pumping water and making sure all the firefighters are safe and accounted for. At car wrecks they are the eyes and ears of the crew, they position the truck for maximum safety.

I'm sure you have asked yourself why the hell did they have to block the whole road with the BRT, when there was room for traffic to get through or around? Well they block the whole road because at some point in the past we had some brain surgeon drive right through our emergency scene. If we give people an tiny crack, they will exploit it.

I have had, shall me say intense conversations with wide eyed, panic stricken, office workers as they try to stealthily creep their car around bleeding, mangled bodies. "What the hell are you doing/" I would ask in not so hushed tones as I pounded on the hood of their car. "I need to get to work." They would say.

"Oh well in that case please go ahead and just drive right over our equipment, we didn't know you were going to work. We are so sorry we got in your way." Some of these people would actually accept my apology, "Oh that's okay."

There really are citizens that when confronted with this kind of situation have absolutely no idea of how to readjust their route of travel. To them, there is one way and one way only to get to their destination. This is the way they always go and there is no other possible way to get to work.

So this is why a driver positions his truck to block as much of the road as possible.

More later.