Bnechis

"We have to pass the bill to know what's in it" - N. Pelosi Well now we know. Who could have possible thought there could be something negative buried in approximately 2409 pages (the house and senate versions are slightly different).

One candidate for commissioner is backed by both the career & volunteer members. The other one is a save the tax payers from the evil board of commissioners, who will spend all of your money cause they don't care. Note: #2 has failed to acknowledge that the board has actually kept under the tax cap. 1 rumor is that #2 will eliminate the ALS Ambulances & go with a commercial service.

This is simply a case of the City going back on their word (of 40+ years). These officers earned this and the current administration is not honoring what was promised. If White Plains declares bankruptcy we can compare them to Detroit, But they are not even on the states distressed city's list.

"Think of what something like this would do for membership!" In some depts. it could do a lot, but in others it could destroy them. Some depts. have claimed that LOSAP just keeps dead wood showing up to the fire house for credit, add this and it may be worst. Also when the budget does not get approved to cover "all" the members what happens? Can you afford to keep everyone? What about the 40+ year members who are no longer able to be firefighters, but they are still members? If you think this is what is needed, than maybe you think you need to pay volunteers to volunteer, if so that's called; "paid on call" I am not saying this is wrong, just lets call it what it is.

For some things federal it does, other it does not

"Most of these rigs though old in age are in pristine condition" Just because they look good, because they are clean and pretty, does not mean they are safe, based on the current standards. Not having modern breaking, traction control and stability control is not worth the liability and the potential financial loss (& life loss), particularly if the rig no longer meets the standards that will be used against the dept. in the courts.

In NYS they are. And that's been reconfirmed by the courts a number of times

Another $ 3.8 Million to date

res6cue that was my point. thanks. Others made it sound like you could just break the MA deal with 1 dept.

And the bill says fiscal impact to state or local governments: None. But in this case their is a local gov impact.

The mutual aid agreement. My point was how many depts. have 1 to 1 agreements vs. county or regional ones?

Depending on the agreement, that maybe illegal. Many are not with individual depts., but are county wide agreements.

Bill its easy to verify. I just looked at the list for the 1901 standard, there are 28 members, plus NFPA staff. 7 represent apparatus manufacturers. The rest do not. Also what ever they recommend goes to the full membership for vote and they get 1,000's of votes, so again its not Hmmmmmm Note: same thing pointed out in the why do ambulances have to meet NFPA thread.

Now lets go at it in a different direction. instead of replacing it because it is old/outdated on the safety issues, I know depts. that have calculated the maintenance cost (which skyrocket after about 7 years on most rigs) and have also looked at the resale value and determined that it is financially best to keep rigs in frontline service for 8 years, then 2 years as a spare and sell it BEFORE its 10th birthday. After that the resale drops by up to 25%. Another issue is after 15 years getting replacement parts on custom apparatus is a major problem, particularly if the manufacture goes bankrupt (think American LaFrance, Simon Duplex and others). Hard to explain to the community why the fire truck is out of service for 3 months waiting for a replacement door handle. Its called a fleet management plan and they have determined its the lest costly over time. To make it really work you need a large fleet, but that's not how we work.

Bill, some good questions. 2 very different issues: Minimal use vehicles have major problems with rot, particularly to seals, gaskets, tires etc. Also diesel motors are designed for long distance high speed running in the long haul trucks. They need to be brought up to operating temperature. The worst thing you can do with a diesel , is start it up occasionally, running it hard without warm up, running it for 15-30 minutes then shutting down for a day or two is best way to kill a diesel motor. NFPA 1901 says that after 15 years the vehicle needs to be upgraded to current safety standards, their is no requirement to replace until 25 years. The cost to upgrade may not be worth it on a 15 year old vehicle. The safety upgrades that are now required include new designs on seat belts, automatic traction control, electronic brake control, speed governor, and others, the most important new safety issue, particularly for a tanker or other very heavy unit is stability control and testing on a tilt table. Many tankers are involved in deadly roll overs because they lack these safety features.

"4 Guys Tanker with the chassis of Spartan ERV" Spartan ERV does not make chassis, they make the apparatus. The chassis is a Spartan, which owns Spartan ERV, but that is run as an independent company that competes with 4 guys and others

So since my last post add $6.6 million to the 8 million.........................

So far that's almost 8 million in replacement cost and there are only 9 out of 59 depts. listed. Good thing the tax payers are willing to keep digging deeper to pay for rigs that in many cases have difficulty getting out the door with proper staffing. How much $$$ are we going to spend before we agree that every square mile in Westchester does not need 3 engines a tower ladder and a rescue?

To meet NFPA standards you must have tire inflation monitoring and the manufactures will not provide them until you have weighed the fully equipped vehicle. Our last 4 vehicles had plenty of capacity left after every compartment was filled and every riding position had a body.

Why worry about it, all you have to consider is which light pattern you want; Red, White, Blue. and the paint job........ Maybe that's why NFPA came out with a standard. There was a thread about that and why EMS should pay attention to it. It will be the document that is used against you in court.

You do not need the lemon law IF you wrote a good spec and have the proper protections in the contract. Its then a case of breech of contract. Our attorneys say it applies, but may and one of our dealers told us of a case that the manufacturer told them to replace a unit. THe problem is it may take another year or 2 to get the replacement.

Why would the Somers BOC vote on dispatch for the International Space Station?

To my knowledge their are no regulations however you need to look at the Max GVW on the vehicle. Then add up the weight of all the equipment you carry (easiest to go to a truck scale). Then add up the weight of your crew (5 members who average 175 lbs. = 875 lbs. and I have seen many a crew member who is bigger than that.) Now add the patient and their family. And remember to consider that some of those family members/patients could be 200-300+ lbs. Have you gone over you vehicle capacity? If you have then you are breaking the law and run a major risk of crashing because you are overloaded. Many years I looked at these numbers on a type II ambulance and it worked out that after the equipment we could only care about 750 lbs. Now we only ran a 2 man crew (450 lbs) have a medic student (150 lbs.) and the family member (150 lbs.) and we had no capacity for the patient.

So based on that you should not boil water in the back of your Type I, II or III ambulance before flipping it over and dunking it in water.

Are you sure that vans and trucks are tested? At one point crash test were only required on cars and not on cans and trucks.