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I agree, a parking lot is much safer than the side of the road. On the few occaissions when I have been stopped on the road, I look for a place to pull over that will be safe. I have even gone as far as signalling to the officer that I have seen him and to have him follow me to a location that would be safer than just pulling over where I am. I have never had an officer get upset with me for not immediately stopping under those circumstances.

Yes, I guess it was kind of a broad question. Sorry about that. The running radar while sitting in someone's driveway does come to mind. What really made me think of this though is, as the state and municipalities struggle to raise revenue, several municipal departments have trained some officers in commercial vehicle safety inspection and enforcement. Recently, one of those departments conducted a selective enforcement action for commercial vehicles. They placed an officer in a 6 lane state highway who directed nearly every commercial vehicle into a shopping center parking lot which soon resembled a truck stop. I was curious as to whether there were any rules/regulations, etc that allows them to use the shopping center (absent management permission) for this purpose. Now, before you LEO's tear me apart, let me just say that, as a commercial vehicle driver, I understand that you guys have a job to do and most do it very well. I personally have had many encounters with "DOT", and most were more than fair.

In addition to tow trucks and plowing contractors, what's with warning lights on hearses? they are also running strobes, lightbars and wig-wags. Other than those that are in the funeral procession thinking they don't have to stop at red lights, what do they need warninglights for? "Hurry Fred, we gotta get this stiff in the ground before lunch."???

Monty, working near a major facility where cars are towed into and out of every day, I also have seen this. There is no need for tow trucks to have their flashing warning lights on when carrying a car on the flatbed or even towing one for that matter. According to NYS DMV, the only time a tow truck is to have its warning flashers on is loading/unloading a vehicle when it may present a hazard to other drivers. Once secured and on the way, the lights are supposed to be turned off. If towing a vehicle, the towed vehicle is supposed to be equipped with turn/stop/tail lights that operate with the towing vehicle lights.(Let me follow this by saying this is what I believe is in the CDL/tow truck operator endorsement manual). BTW, in addition to tow trucks, have you seen the light show put on by many plow contractors? I've seen nearly every color of light on those as well.

Recently, Orange County began the switch their identifier from 36-Control to Orange 911. Shortly after this began, a chief on scene at a structure fire calls them. XXX-1 to 36-Con....what the hell are they calling themselves now?...Oh, XXX-1 to Orange 911.

In the aftermath of last nights stabbings (one fatal) in the City of Newburgh, the violence spilled over into the schools today. NFA was on lockdown twice today. Every available officer from the city and town as well as state police and federal (FBI) agents were at the school today. As a precaution, all after school activities have been cancelled and school is closed tomorrow.

Here are a couple of pics from an MVA at approx 0430 today (1/15). Call was for Car vs tree with possible entrapment. Upon arrival found this truck wedged between two trees. Both occupants were ejected. I took these later in the day. Hopefully will be able to get a couple of scene pics. One pt transported by ground, one flown. Truck is pretty much as was found at scene Location: Rt 17K at Orr Ave Units operating: Winona Lake R-323, E-322, C-1, C-2, TNPD, MLSS 272 and 294, Quality Towing, Good-Will FD at LZ with LifeNet.

Pretty much what everyone else has said. Go to DMV and get the CDL manual. Study it. When you think you are ready, study some more. Pay the fee for the permit. Next you'll need a truck to practice on and to take the road test on. Unless you know someone that has one, good luck with that. For the road test, you'll need a manual transmission unless you want to be restricted to an automatic. Oh, and air brakes also. After that good luck. If you are planning on using it for regular employment, most places want experianced drivers. As far as money goes, the DMV website should have the fees. When I last renewed my CDL-A, it was $130 for the license, $5 for the Haz-Mat test, and $143 for the fingerprint fee. Then, because of my work, I had to have a TWIC which was $130 and two days in Albany, but my employer paid for that money grabbing scheme.

Winona Lake (Town of Newburgh, Orange Co) 504 Fire. A decrease for the second straight year.

Hey, EMSer, are you surprised that no one has commented on this? (I'm not). My sister lives in the area where this happened and told me about it a while ago. I suppose if this were to have involved a volunteer responding to a call instead of a cop just trying to make it to where ever for no official reason, there would be pages of comments on this. Eventually, they will figure out that just because they represent the law, they are not above the law.

Didn't see this mentioned on the boards here, so for those who may be interested... A Town Police officer was seriously injured in an mva with 2 school busses. He initially was flown to St.Francis and later transferred to WCMC. Accident is under investigation, but according to witnessses and news reports, he crossed the center line and sideswiped the first bus before hitting the second one nearly head on. There was a story and pics in the Record but I can't link to it. Here is the story from MidHudson News.com http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/2009/November09/13/TNbrg_patcar_SB-13Nov09.html http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/2009/November09/13/Canavan_update-13Nov09.htm Prayers for a speedy recovery.

Circleville, is an all volunteer fire department. MLSS has an ambulance stationed there so it wouldn't seem unlikely that the ambulance would be first on scene. We stopped running EMS calls years ago. At the time, ems calls were 60% of our call volume. At the end however, we would show up and 2 ambulances would be on scene so it really made no sense for us to continue to respond. We will still respond if requested. I really don't think that it will make any difference to the taxpayers in Circleville. I don't think that the budget will go down any as probably most budget items are fixed costs such as insurance, etc.

Ahh... That's that whole "search function is your friend" thing. Thanks

No. He was not responding to a call. I won't say what I have heard as it is only second hand info, but they are, among other things, looking at a possible medical cause.

Hey, you can trust the government. Ask any Indian. (Native American for you PC type)

Thanks. I didn't know that.

Congrats on the new rig. Not being from that area and not familiar with their organization, how often can they get all three rigs out if needed? Do they actually have an active enough membership/staff to do this? Or is the third more so they can rotate the equipment? I know of a corp here in Orange County that has 3 brand new (within the last year) rigs, but often cannot get 1 out without 2nd, 3rd, etc. dispatches. Another I know has 3, and can generally get all out. Sometimes, to go m/a.

AndyC3J, I understand that there is no official museum and that you can't give "tours", but how might one make contact in order to walk through a warehouse "looking for things". I would love to walk through and my brother from upstate wants to come down and walk through a dusty warehouse as well. E-mail me if you need to.

In principle, it does apply to the underlined portion but not the preceeding part. The law does require that the volunteer obey all traffic laws. Due regard is just common sense but I don't believe that it is actually stated in the section on V&T that regulates blue lights. The general public, however, is under no obligation to yield to blue lights. In fact, I have seen many drivers purposely go out of their way to obstruct a vehicle with blue lights on, just the same as many do to vehicles with red & white lights and the siren going.

I believe that the turf/power thing is a big part of it. Unfortunately it pervades every sector of emergency services and the private sector as well. I listened today to a call in the Hudson Valley for a confirmed working structure fire. The first due dept called for mutual aid to the scene from a department that is 8 +/- miles away in another county. Not a problem until you consider that they by-passed 3 closer depts. Then they started calling m/a for back fill and s/b. While we had a full crew (driver, officer, 2 ff) in house, we listened to one of the m/a companies (4 miles further away than us) re-sound so they could get an engine off the floor. I believe that not until we get someone killed because of stupidity like this, and lose a major lawsuit, will things begin to change. BTW, as an added bonus, I was in an ER last night and there was a crew from the VAC that I occaisionally ride with. I was working for a commercial company. I was told by one of the VAC crew members that they couldn't talk to me because I was working for the other company. Serioulsy? Are we really that petty and pathetic?

I'll pass along the info to our guy in charge of that stuff. Thanks.

Another one on the exodus from NY? A friend of mine just sold his house and is moving to Tennessee. Lucky s.o.b. I just e-mailed Texas for reciprocity info. It's between there and maybe NC or VA. Last one out, turn out the lights.

Let's just suppose for a moment that a few people thought it may be a good idea to consolidate services to share equipment and manpower, reduce the tax burden on the taxpayers of several districts, and possibly even hire firefighters to provide adequate coverage and timely responses. If one were to do a study to prove or disprove the effectiveness of such a pipe dream, where would they start? What are some of the things that should be looked at and where might one find some of this information?

Nope. From what I was told, there isn't a band to be found. All booked. If someone does know of one, let me know. We were going to attend, but can't find a band.

My cousin was killed by a drunk driver shortly after she turned 18. She and a friend were run over, in her driveway, by a drunk that ran off the road. So, while I have absolutely no use for drunk drivers, I still am uneasy at this increase in police powers.