Quick Clearance Program for Traffic Incidents

[grumpyff 1,159]

I recently attended the Putnam Northern Westchester Fire Police Association (http://www.pnwfpa.org/) annual Seminar on traffic control/ duties of the fire police. One speaker was New York State Police Tec./Sgt. Ira Promisel, who gave a lecture on "Quick Clearance". This program is in use up the I-95 corridor and in other parts of the country. NYSP is beginning to train its troopers in this program. Sgt Promisel spoke about the need to get traffic moving where possible, and the consequences of blocking traffic unnecessarily. Economic impact, traffic congestion, pollution, and even additional accidents as other drivers particularly on the opposite side of the road rubberneck the original incident. He spoke of "lane plus one" where you take the lane of the incident, and the next adjoining lane as a safe area to work, leaving any additional lanes open to move traffic out of the area. He even touched on scene lighting, recommending turning off forward facing emergency lights, as it just slow opposing traffic (which on a divided highway is not a good thing), and having only the rear most vehicle with its emergency lighting on. No need for two engines, a rescue, and god knows how many police cars with all the light bars on.It doesn't make you safer, but a bigger distraction to other driver who want to see what is going on., leading to bigger traffic jams, and more potential for additional accidents. Position the ambulance(s) in front of the accident scene, with tow vehicles in front of that, so that ambulances may depart the scene quickly utilizing the lanes that are already closed eliminating the need to pull out into traffic. This also allows tow vehicles to back into the scene to begin clearance. Here is a link to the Quick Clearance program, http://www.i95coalit...88/Default.aspx Take a look at the video titled "Seattle Wave" to see how one incident effects traffic flow, and the safety of responders working on the scene.

Edited April 25, 2011 by grumpyff

[PFDRes47cue 653]

"lane plus one" sounds good. But if you are in the middle lane, you will take either the right or left lane adjacent to the incident. This means traffic will be in the other adjacent lane. I think for center lane incidents, the road should be closed until the incident is moved to the should or another lane.

[INIT915 1,119]

"lane plus one" sounds good. But if you are in the middle lane, you will take either the right or left lane adjacent to the incident. This means traffic will be in the other adjacent lane. I think for center lane incidents, the road should be closed until the incident is moved to the should or another lane.

I would agree with that. At the same time however, I personally feel that few accidents occur in the center lane. In my experience, a majority involve the right or left lanes, for no other reason then, when accounting for medians/shoulders, there is more likelihood accidents end up there. (That's not a scientific analysis, just an observation from experience.)

To get back to the original poster, Chief Technical Sergeant Promisel is, in my opinion, arguably one of the brightest men I know in law enforcement. He has a very impressive resume, and this type of analysis and implementation is his forte.

[PFDRes47cue 653]

I would agree with that. At the same time however, I personally feel that few accidents occur in the center lane. In my experience, a majority involve the right or left lanes, for no other reason then, when accounting for medians/shoulders, there is more likelihood accidents end up there. (That's not a scientific analysis, just an observation from experience.)

To get back to the original poster, Chief Technical Sergeant Promisel is, in my opinion, arguably one of the brightest men I know in law enforcement. He has a very impressive resume, and this type of analysis and implementation is his forte.

I would agree with that. I would say the the majority of the accidents that I have responded to that were in the center lane ended up there after the collision. For example, if a car bounces of the median and flips into the center lane. But absolutely, most accidents seem to occur in the left or right lanes.

[DaRock98 76]

This class sounds very similar to a class I took at the DES called Traffic Incident Management System or “TIMS” taught by NYSP. It involved the FD, EMS, NYSP and County PD a long with some dispatchers. It pretty much went over everything you described and was geared toward getting all of the agencies to work together on the roads.

[Alpinerunner 61]

Sounds good to me. I like the idea of only having the rear-most units have their lights on (at an accident on a divided highway). People always assume "oooh lots of lights and trucks, this must be a good one that I NEED to see". It will probably take a long time to catch on especially with minimal interaction between State police and fire departments, but at least we're moving in the right direction.

[grumpyff 1,159]

This class sounds very similar to a class I took at the DES called Traffic Incident Management System or "TIMS" taught by NYSP. It involved the FD, EMS, NYSP and County PD a long with some dispatchers. It pretty much went over everything you described and was geared toward getting all of the agencies to work together on the roads.

Yes, IIRC this is a part of the TIMS. One thing brought up was to determine if you could "move it" or "work it".

To get back to the original poster, Chief Technical Sergeant Promisel is, in my opinion, arguably one of the brightest men I know in law enforcement. He has a very impressive resume, and this type of analysis and implementation is his forte.

Sgt Promisel was excellent, and very knowledgeable of the material. He was also quick to acknowledge that every agency has member(s) that are hotheads, and that we need to work together to quickly and safely get off the highways. One thing I liked was the he seemed very proactive, that the time to meet is not at incident, but before hand during training.