Local drivers? safety program looks to expand

Nearly 19 years after the Emergency Vehicle Awareness program was created to educate young drivers, there is now interest in taking it beyond Warren County. The program was created by Gerry Brown, the retired fire chief from the Bowling Green Fire Department, said Deputy Chief John Weatherbee. Brown realized there was a need for this type of program after an emergency vehicle he was driving was involved in an accident in which a young woman was seriously injured, Weatherbee said. Since 1989, Emergency Vehicle Awareness has been taught in drivers education classes at various times in every Warren County high school. The program has also been taught at schools outside the county when the fire department received a request, Weatherbee said. “We recently presented the program at the Lifesavers conference in Louisville and there was a lot of interest in taking it statewide,” he said. The program was based upon the statutes for both civilian and emergency drivers in Kentucky, Brown said. “We were able to put a camera on the front of one of the vehicle and record the reactions of drivers,” he said. “That video was used to show good and bad reactions.” The key is to give young people as much information as possible about how to react when they hear or see emergency vehicles, Weatherbee said. “We teach them things such as leaving their window cracked a little to hear emergency vehicles if they’re listening to the radio,” he said. “You would be amazed how much of a difference that makes.” The Bowling Green Fire Department alone responds to more than 4,000 emergency calls per year with lights and sirens activated, Weatherbee said. With that many calls, it is important that young drivers know what to do and what not to do, he said. For example, he said, most young drivers don’t know that it’s against the law for emergency personnel to activate lights or sirens unless they are responding to an emergency. When an emergency vehicle comes to a light, it doesn’t automatically have the right of way. The vehicle, through its lights and sirens, is asking other vehicles to give it the right of way. If people learn to react correctly, it will allow for fewer injuries and quicker responses to emergency scenes, he said. “In our vehicles, because of the weight involved, a crash usually results in a serious injury or fatality,” Weatherbee said. Weatherbee said in his experience, about half of drivers react correctly when they see an emergency vehicle. “It’s rare that they do something extremely dangerous,” he said. “We do often see panicked stops, which can be dangerous.” Drivers will at times attempt to yield to the left, instead of yielding to the right as they are supposed to, Weatherbee said. At the Lifesavers conference, packets were given to representatives from throughout the state so they would have all the information they needed for the program, he said. “There’s no one to quantify how much good the program does, but you know it’s doing good work,” Brown said. At one time the emergency vehicle program was advertised in some trade magazines for firefighters, he said. There were 60 to 70 departments in 16 or 17 states who were provided information. The program is quick and easy to set up because the laws are similar from state to state regarding responding to emergency vehicles, Brown said. “All you really need to do is get some video footage,” he said, adding that it is a very effective program.
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