Raising awareness? Not likely...

[feren]

I was skimming around on fark.com this morning and stumbled across a link that was of particular interest to me. As many people already know, I am rather interested in developments that affect firefighters, police and other public safety employees because my father is a professional firefighter (who, thankfully, has made it safely to the age where he will soon be retiring). Because of my awareness of my dad's profession I always am curious any time I see something in the news involving firefighters, so I'll take a quick peek. Fark had a link to an article over at New Scientist about a UK firefighter's invention to help raise the awareness of drivers to oncoming emergency services vehicles -- it's a system to cut into the radios and CD players of cars in the vicinity of an emergency service vehicle and alert them of the oncoming ambulance/squard/pumper/whatever. Personally I think this is a great idea; after living in Illinois for the last six years or so I've come to realize that most drivers in this state (and anywhere else in the US, for that matter) have absolutely No Clue about how to act when a firetruck or ambulance is approaching them from ahead or from behind. Furthermore, I've seen people who were completely oblivious to the fact that a pumper loaded with eight or more tons of water was approaching them from the side because they were too engrossed in their bass-heavy stereo or their cell phone conversation.

But, sadly, this invention will never make it -- it just makes too much goddamn sense.

Comments

[roho.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and I can see one other problem with it.

You know those cops that leave you stuck at an intersection because they pull some guy over and forget to turn off the opticom equipment? So you sit there at a light for 10 minutes? Well, now picture your radio blaring out, "EMERGENCY VEHICLE IN THE VICINITY!" every 5 seconds for that 10 minutes ;)

(Actually, I think this is a pretty good idea, but like you said, unlikely to catch on. "Yeah, there may be a guy on fire a mile down the road, but that doesn't mean you have the right to cut into my PHAT TUNEZ!")

[varro.livejournal.com]

It's a good idea for fire and ambulance crews, but the police here abuse their lights/siren privileges....essentially, they use them at most every stop light to avoid having to wait.

It's an event for a cop to stop at the light at 39th and East Burnside, which was near where I used to live. It was also about 10 blocks from the SE Precinct...