With due regard for safety

Yesterday, I was privileged to have an opportunity to speak with rising Freshmen students from two neighboring counties.  These students were learning about a "Day in the life of a College Student" and were presented with the arts, sciences, and our tremendous Paramedic Program.  During this opportunity, one of the students asked a question regarding the highest authorized speed an ambulance can drive.  Now, I understand the basis behind his question, but it made me think while I answered.  Now, I have driven fire trucks, ambulances, and support vehicles through vast amount of roadways in both perfect conditions and not-so-perfect conditions.  I have driven them quickly, and no-so-quickly, and luckily I was never involved in an accident.  Now over the years, I quickly became more mature when driving and truly embodied the principles noted below in the Tennessee Codes Annotated.

With due regard for safety...what does that mean.  Driving an emergency response apparatus is a responsibility that many individuals take for granted.  If you look at some of the best tuned vehicles in the world, they still wreck.  Nascar vehicles are prepared for the demands that are placed on them in trips around an oval track at high speeds with drivers that are highly trained to maintain control in the same high demands, and we treat our fire trucks and ambulances the same way.  When was the last time you had the tires rotated, and when was the oil changed?  When were the bolts tightened, and the brakes changed?  Do you really know the answers?  The answer is that we really don't know the answer and yet we still take our ambulances around the corners of an interstate and speeds well above the safety requirements for the vehicle.  So this individual asked what speed was with due regard for safety.  And I said how about 20 miles per hour...he laughed and said yes that is safe.  I said what if you were driving 20mph and got in a wreck, were you proceeding with due regard for safety and his answer was still yes, but a little more hesitant than before.  I asked again and said really, you get in a wreck at 20 miles per hour and obviously it wasn't a safe enough speed.

We see wrecks in emergency service vehicles almost everyday.  Some of the wreck are minor "fender benders" where everybody walks away ok, but you were still in an accident, then there are other times in which an ambulance flips multiple times after running through the driver side door of an opposing while busting through a red-light at high speeds.  Patients are flying around the back of an ambulance after the stretcher breaks its locking mechanism and the treating paramedic slams around the roof and all sides of the ambulance.  The driver was wearing his safety belt, but has now bounced around the driver's seat and is unconscious in the unit.

Safe is only safe when we truly take into account the term "due regard for safety" and know the limitations of your unit, and operate it within the constraints of the atmosphere we live in.  Below is an excerpt from the Tennessee Codes Annotated related to emergency apparatus use.

Take Care and Stay Safe

The Combomedic
twitter.com/dsblev

"55-8-108. Authorized emergency vehicles.

(a)  The driver of an authorized emergency vehicle, when responding to an emergency call, or when in the pursuit of an actual or suspected violator of the law, or when responding to but not upon returning from a fire alarm, may exercise the privileges set forth in this section, but subject to the conditions stated in this section.

(b)  (1)  A driver of an authorized emergency vehicle operating the vehicle in accordance with subsection (a) may:

          (A)  Park or stand, notwithstanding other provisions of this chapter that regulate parking or standing;

          (B)  Proceed past a red or stop signal or stop sign, but only after slowing down as may be necessary for safe operation;

          (C)  Exceed the speed limits so long as life or property is not thereby endangered; and

          (D)  Disregard regulations governing direction of movement or turning in specified directions.

     (2)  Subdivision (b)(1) shall not relieve the driver of an authorized emergency vehicle from the duty to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons, nor shall subdivision (b)(1) protect the driver from the consequences of the driver's own reckless disregard for the safety of others."