Operations on Major Highways

[DOC22 1]

I was just wonering how different Departments deal with personnel on Highways. We don't let members take POV's on the interstate. Drivers wait for a crew at FH. The exception, of course would be member on highway in POV happening onto scene.

[Shantz02 0]

Down here in Pelham, the paid guys take in all highway calls. Volunteers are not allowed to bring their POVs onto the highway. As you said though, if they are already on the highway and happen onto the scene, thats a different story. I cant think of anyone who would not stop to make sure things are ok if they happen onto a scene. If the volunteers are at the fire house, they CAN jump on the rigs and respond with the paid guys.

[Oswegowind 17]

The police would be very unhappy if all responders brought their own vehicles onto the highways for all calls. the police have a responsibility to create the least impedence to traffic and provide safety to all on scene. by having too many vehicles on the highway they are unable to accomplish such.

[cas2383 22]

As with many other departments personal vehicles are not allowed on the highway, for it is not only a problem with congestion in traffic as with personel safety. We usually wait as long as possible for additional manpower at the firehouse. Also we on many occasions have one unit stage on the entrance ramp (unless crically needed) this way members can meet there and ride down to the scene on a piece of fire apparatus.

[mfc2257 464]

Our policy is that we respond only to our two fire houses however as we all know these are policies and there is always room for interpretation based on scenerio. 99% of the time we keep personal vehicles off the Taconic, however our territory is blessed with large expanses of grass both in the center median and on the right of the roadway on both the north and southbound lanes thus if a major MVA occurs and we've got some additional members on their way in then we usually don't give them a hard time so long as they've parked well off the roadway. Our policy however is to always respond to the fire house unless otherwise warrented. So this would basically mean the only reason that our members would respond to ANY of our scenes would be two scenerios... They got to the firehouse and most apparatus was gone and after waiting a reasonable amount of time no additional drivers arrived, yet there was still enough going on at the incident to warrent additional manpower and they respond to the scene and park way way way way out of the work area OR they have to pass the scene to get to the station and they see most or all of our apparatus on location in which case they also park at least 2 zipcodes out of the way.

Typically under both of these scenerios the scene is set and there is PD or FD traffic patterns set up as well as people assigned to traffic control. Responding members would be able to safely pull off the road under these conditions and park out of the way.