By John “Skip” Coleman
A long, long time ago, I was chief of training. At that time, the Training Bureau was in charge of Research and Development. We saw a video made by a large southwest fire department that established a driving policy. One of the aspects of the policy was a procedure that said when we responded to incidents, we could not exceed 10 mph over the posted speed limit.
All new fire apparatus have Vehicle Data Recorders (VDRs) installed in them. They are, in essence, black boxes that record many aspects of the vehicles service and operation. NFPA standards state that departments are supposed to routinely use them [VDRs] to monitor for excessive driving speed.
This month’s question: Does your department use VDRs to routinely monitor excessive driving speed?
Register and log in to the Fire Engineering Web site and leave your comments below.John “Skip” Coleman retired as assistant chief from the Toledo (OH) Department of Fire and Rescue. He is a technical editor of Fire Engineering. a member of the FDIC Educational Advisory Board; and author of Incident Management for the Street-Smart Fire Officer (Fire Engineering, 1997), Managing Major Fires (Fire Engineering, 2000), Incident Management for the Street-Smart Fire Officer, Second Edition (Fire Engineering, 2008) and Searching Smarter (Fire Engineering 2011) and 2011 recipient of the FDIC Tom Brennan Lifetime Achievement Award.
