Anyone who has driven an emergency vehicle with lights and sirens knows that it can be fun, it gets your adrenaline bumping, and a lot of us become giddy, like a kid in a candy store. But with some of us, it activates our innate road rage tenancies. Other than the obvious, it’s fun and exciting, why do we drive lights and sirens? Most states give emergency vehicles the legal right to go around traffic, go through intersections, and go above the speed limit when responding to an emergent situation. EMTs and paramedics aren’t really known for being patient, or wanting to drive with the flow of traffic, so being given the legal authority to bypass it is a huge draw for us. But is it worth it? In a recent study, it was determined that “91% of ambulance crashes occur during travel with lights and sirens.” (Parnell, 2019).
As much fun as lights and sirens can be, it is significantly more dangerous for us. Activating the lights and sirens doesn’t just increase our risk, but it increases the risk for every vehicle and person around us. Being able to drive faster can allow you to get on scene or get to the hospital quicker… if you are in a remote location, on a long highway or interstate, but not so much if you are within city limits. On average the lights and sirens save us approximately 43.5 seconds. (Li, 2022). Within towns and cities, you speed up, then have to quickly slow down before reaching an intersection. In towns and cities, you also have a lot more traffic and pedestrians, slowing you down. When there are more vehicles on the road, we should be driving in the left lane and pretty much staying there, but we tend to weave in and out of traffic, thinking each lane change will allow us to get where we need to go faster, unfortunately though, all it does it further increase our risks.
Most states do give us the authority to do what we need to do, when it comes to responding to emergencies, they just state that we need to drive with due regard. But what does driving with due regard actually mean? It means that we need to drive in a manner that a reasonable person would drive, to not endanger those around us. It means that we need to be paying attention to the road conditions, follow distances, lane changes, and every vehicle and person around us. Because if we get into a crash in an ambulance, they will almost always blame the ambulance driver, because we created an unsafe situation, meaning that we were not driving with due regard.
So how can you drive an ambulance, potentially going over the speed limit, going through red lights and stop signs without endangering those around us? Rule number one, if you cannot get on scene in a safe manner, then you are doing something wrong. Today’s ambulances have a lot of equipment on board, ideally to help our patients have the best outcome. We have very sophisticated cardiac monitoring, Lucas or Auto Pulse devices, medications, and airway support equipment, and more. But none of this equipment does any good if we get into a crash, and never make it to the patient.
There are a lot of dangers that become exacerbated as soon as you flip on those lights and sirens. Siren use is often abused by ambulance personnel. A siren should be used to alert the public “Hey, I’m here, will you please let me go around you?”. However, some of us have road rage tendencies when driving lights and sirens. So, some of us tend to use the siren as “Hey, get out of my way NOW!” We usually have a few different siren sounds, plus an airhorn, and some of us like to rapidly flip through every sound over and over and over. Is that helpful? I think not. Those random sounds will get peoples’ attention, but they often don’t know where the different sounds are coming from, so the public still doesn’t know what to do.
Newer vehicles are now meant to be silent. People don’t want to hear what’s going on around them, so they often don’t hear our sirens until we are directly behind them. Also with most sirens, if you are travelling greater than 40-50 miles per hour, you are going faster than your siren, meaning that no one in front you can hear you. So a driver randomly looks in their mirror and sees us right behind them, and at that point, people tend to panic. You never know what another driver is going to do when you scare them… will they go left, go right, slam on their breaks, or suddenly speed up? Who knows. If we scare them and they get into a crash, guess who they are going to blame… yep, it’s us.
Does the ability to go through red lights and stop signs, mean that we also have the right to blast our siren at vehicles waiting in front of us, expecting them to also go through the restricted intersection? Most of us feel like we have that right. The ambulance shouldn’t have to wait at the red light, so everyone needs to move. But who is to blame if those other vehicles get into an MVA because we essentially forced them into an un-cleared intersection? Again, it’s going to be our fault. Sometimes it is safer for everyone if we have some patience. Shut off the lights and sirens, wait for the light to turn green, and then re-activate everything. We can go the wrong way into oncoming traffic or down a one-way road. But any vehicle that may be coming towards us is not going to be expecting us. Is it right that we expect the other vehicle to move out of our way, and let us through? Just because we technically can do some, otherwise frowned upon things, with our lights and sirens on, doesn’t mean that we should.
What about driving in bad weather. Driving through heavy rain, fog, ice, and snow is dangerous enough as is, but when we add flashing lights, that are reflecting off every droplet of water, suddenly it looks like the inside of a snow globe, and it can be blinding for everyone, and no one knows where the lights are coming from.
Most of the time when an ambulance gets into a crash, it’s the public that gets injured or killed, not us. Our large ambulances do a good job of protecting us, and they tend to cause a lot of damage to smaller vehicles, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Between 1996 and 2012, there were 137 civilian fatalities and 228 civilian injuries from fire vehicle accidents. Approximately 97 EMS professionals were killed in ambulance accidents between 1993 and 2010. 7.7% of EMS practitioners have been involved in a crash while using lights and sirens. (Public Safety Group, 2022).
Those are some scary numbers. We, as people, tend to think that we are invincible. Nothing bad is going to happen to me, I’m not going to be in an ambulance crash. But you never know when today is the day, someone has a lapse in judgement, they don’t fully clear the intersection before proceeding, you scare another driver and they react in an unexpected way, or your following distance is a little too close. You do not want to be the reason that someone is injured or killed. EMTs and paramedics have been arrested and imprisoned for causing a fatal crash in the ambulance. One mistake can ruin your life and someone else’s’. Is saving those 43.5 seconds worth it? Driving lights and sirens is fun, but it is also a lot of responsibility, and you need to think, not only what you are doing, but what are the people around you going to do? Everyone needs to go home safe at the end of the day, and that starts with you and how you are driving.
References:
Li, James. (February 25, 2022). Article Bites #36: Is Using Of Warning Lights And Sirens Associated With Increased Risk Of Ambulance Crashes? A Contemporary Analysis Using National EMS Information System (NEMSIS) Data. National Association of EMS Physicians. https://naemsp.org/2022-2-25-article-bites-36-is-using-of-warning-lights-and-sirens-associated-with-increased-risk-of-ambulance-crashes-a-contemporary-analysis-using-national-ems-information-system-nemsis-data/#:~:text=The%20transport%20phase%20crash%20rate,(CI%202.2%20to%203.9).
Parnell, Sam. (August 22, 2019). Lights and Sirens – Worth the Risk? Journal Feed. https://journalfeed.org/article-a-day/2019/lights-and-sirens-worth-the-risk/#:~:text=Ambulance%20use%20of%20lights%20and,ambulances%20used%20lights%20and%20sirens.
Public Safety Group. (June 14, 2022). Lights and Siren Use in EMS is Changing. Here’s What You Need to Know. Public Safety Group. https://www.psglearning.com/blog/psg/2022/06/14/lights-and-siren-use-in-ems-is-changing.-here’s-what-you-need-to-know
