Driving Time

[cruella369]

Our fire department is trying to come up with a system for signing individuals off on apparatus. We currently have 3 different make/model of engine, 2 types of ambulances, a water tender and two brush rigs.

We have a haphazard system of signoffs....some good ol boy, some paperwork. Now they are talking about standardizing and in addition to having the Pumper/Operator certifications (EVOC for ambulances), needing 10 hours driving time - per apparatus - to be signed off.

What does your fire department do? A pumping test and driving test? New tests for different apparatus? Hours behind the wheel?

[BoxAlarm187]

PM me with your email address and I'll send you what we use at the VFD. I think our policy might be a good way for you to get started.

[hwoods]

And...........

With Us, you Start on the Ambulances and Work up..... The Heavy Rescue is the Largest Vehicle that we have, and the Last that you learn to Drive..... You start out by getting 5 Hours "Parking Lot Time" which is just that, Time driving in a Parking lot. Parking, Backing up, Going Forward, Turning thru Cones, etc. are in the Parking Lot segment of Training. You get 10 hours on the Road accompanied by a Senior Driver, then You start Driving To Calls (Responding) with a Senior Driver. After 20 Responses you MAY be cut loose...... Additionally, we require the EVOC Class Certification........

[Eng34FF]

Ours is very similar to Harve's. Start with the Ambulance, move to brush trucks and then to the engines, tanker and finally the Squad. In addition to the driving time, we also make sure that everybody knows how to operate the equipment on the apparatus.

We require EVOC for everything and Pumps to operate anything with a pump on it.

[HAFD112]

Why do you need so much driver training time? You drove to the station didn't you. Our brush trucks are 1-ton 4x4s, our guys drive them for POVs.

I think some dept. go a little crazy with operator requirments.

[hwoods]

Well............

Why do you need so much driver training time? You drove to the station didn't you. Our brush trucks are 1-ton 4x4s, our guys drive them for POVs.

I think some dept. go a little crazy with operator requirments.

I am a Part Owner, Along with 86 other people, of about $ 1,750,000.00 worth of Motor Vehicles that I am Damn Proud of. If you haven't done it, you have no idea of what it's like to work to raise the money to pay for this stuff, and to be concerned about it's proper use. IMHO, anyone who thinks "Driving to the Station" in a 4x4 Pickup (which I do, BTW) and Responding to an Emergency Call driving a 62,000 Lb. Tandem Rear Axle piece of Apparatus (which I also do) is anywhere near the same, is out of touch with reality......


For anyone who isn't up on our situation, Our Call Volume is such that folks don't sit around and wait for stuff to happen, they can get their Time in Quickly........

[Eng34FF]

I am a Part Owner, Along with 86 other people, of about $ 1,750,000.00 worth of Motor Vehicles that I am Damn Proud of. If you haven't done it, you have no idea of what it's like to work to raise the money to pay for this stuff, and to be concerned about it's proper use. IMHO, anyone who thinks "Driving to the Station" in a 4x4 Pickup (which I do, BTW) and Responding to an Emergency Call driving a 62,000 Lb. Tandem Rear Axle piece of Apparatus (which I also do) is anywhere near the same, is out of touch with reality......


For anyone who isn't up on our situation, Our Call Volume is such that folks don't sit around and wait for stuff to happen, they can get their Time in Quickly........

Well said. Also take into consideration the damage that those 62,000 lb vehicles can do to civilian vehicles and the civilians themselves, and good training just makes sense.

[BoxAlarm187]

Why do you need so much driver training time? You drove to the station didn't you. Our brush trucks are 1-ton 4x4s, our guys drive them for POVs.

I think some dept. go a little crazy with operator requirments.

And I just sold my lifted Tahoe on 35's, in what way does that make the guy who I sold it to qualified to drive fire trucks?

We need to insure that the taxpayers, who purchased all of the rigs sitting in the station, are being operated by people who have proven their competence behind the wheel. This includes operating a 22 ton engine and 26 ton tanker on curvy and crowned back roads. There's nothing about driving a one-ton pickup that shares similarity to the vehicle dynamics that one of these Class 7 or Class 8 vehicle shares.

For what it's worth, the guys at my station, who have to actually go through our process (not just read about it on the internet) haven't fussed about it yet. Guess we're doing something right....

[goblin766]

at my vfd we have to take state drivers tranning consiting of 8 hours of class room and 8 hours of driving then the cheif has to take us out 1 at a time and have us preform certan driving skills in each truck starting with ems truck then rescue truck all teh way up to our tanker and has to sign off on each one and submitt it to teh county for us to be covered under there insurense

sorry for my spelling it sux

[voyager9]

Our driver training consists of JPR's (compentency drills), a certain number of hours behind the wheel and then a "final exam" by a chief/line officer. We start with the rescue since it is the least complex even though it's probably the hardest to drive due to its age. Moving on to the Engine (adds the pump) and finally the Tower (adds the aerial).

[CaptOldTimer]

at my vfd we have to take state drivers tranning consiting of 8 hours of class room and 8 hours of driving then the cheif has to take us out 1 at a time and have us preform certan driving skills in each truck starting with ems truck then rescue truck all teh way up to our tanker and has to sign off on each one and submitt it to teh county for us to be covered under there insurense

sorry for my spelling it sux

Let's fix your spelling:


Goblin766, do you have Microsoft Office on your computer??

I am sure you do or something that is very similar.

Using a blank document, open that and type what you have to say there. Do a spell check and correct all misspellings, and grammar.

Once you are satisfied, highlight the wording used the copy feature [ ctrl + c ] copy it, and then paste it to this forum as a reply.

How about that?



BTW it is almost Halloween!

[Engineer mtl]

We have an classroom section for EVOC roughly 4 hours, then in Tennessee we have to go through Vanessa K Free course which is a short class mostly on emergency vehicles and intersections, then we have a drivers course that we make everyone drive every vehicle they feel they can through the course. It is a large open parking lot with cones to minimize risk of damage. We do backing up, turning, serpentine, reverse serpentine, merging lanes and such. Then you keep a mileage chart and have to get 100 miles on a vehicle and 3 emergency runs with 10 hours of training on all the equipment on the truck and how to run it. Then on top of that if you want to run an engine you need to go through the 16 hour intro to pumpers class and then pass the pumper test put on by the department. It is a long process but really the miles go by fast. To help if you get signed off on the largest pumper you are pretty much signed off on any of the smaller vehicles once you show you can operate the equipment. Wow that sounds like a lot on paper.

[goblin766]

Let's fix your spelling:


Goblin766, do you have Microsoft Office on your computer??

I am sure you do or something that is very similar.

Using a blank document, open that and type what you have to say there. Do a spell check and correct all misspellings, and grammar.

Once you are satisfied, highlight the wording used the copy feature [ ctrl + c ] copy it, and then paste it to this forum as a reply.

How about that?



BTW it is almost Halloween!

At my vfd we have to take state drivers training consisting of 8 hours of class room and 8 hours of driving. Then the chief has to take us out 1 at a time and have us perform certain driving skills in each truck. Starting with ems truck then rescue truck all the way up to our tanker. He has to sign off on each one and submit it to the county for us to be covered under there insurance

Sorry for my spelling it sux
is that any better

[HAFD112]

Sorry, I just ment we don't do any training on the brush trucks. I was not trying to compare a 1-ton to a 30 ton piece of app.

The state sets the minimum requirments here. I don't know what they are. But about a third of the firefighters here are farmers who own bigger trucks than the fire dept.

[BoxAlarm187]

But about a third of the firefighters here are farmers who own bigger trucks than the fire dept.

As an EVOC instructor for the past 6 years, I always LOVE hearing this from my students. There's more to driving an emergency vehicle than there is driving a big farm truck. Sure, someone with the history of driving trucks may have a little idea about vehicle dimensions, but farmer doesn't = emergency vehicle operator.