Leadership on the line: Seat Belts Past, Present, Future
About 45% of the fire service does not wear their seat belt when riding in emergency vehicles. Firefighters have been and will be injured and killed because they were not using their seat belt. This problem is not new; it persists today, and will not change in the future until we the fire service take responsibility and buckle up.
Today’s show continues the National Seat Belt Pledge Campaign. The program objective is to have 1,000,000 firefighter’s sign the pledge to wear their seat belt by June 21, 2007. The impact objective is to reduce the number of firefighters kill because they did not have their seat belt on by 100% in 2007. In other, words from now on: every firefighter, driver, company officer, and chief officer will wear their seat belt. We will take responsibility for ourselves and each other.
Related Links:
National Seat Belt Pledge (PDF)
NIOSH: Traumatic Occupational Injuries
VFIS Newsletters
National Seat Belt Pledge Homepage
Special thanks to TrainingDivision.com for their dedication and participation in the National Seat Belt Pledge campaign.
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Would the publishing of “success stories” that the use of seat belt parallel to the tragedies help safe firefighters life in vehicle accidents be helpful to encourage use of seat belts?
As mentioned by one of the penalist that firefighters have a “Go Get It” attitude, may the promotion of “The public needs us now, be a part of the solution not a part of the problems” be of any use?
Alex, yes! I will see about adding seat belt success stories to the National Seat Belt Pledge web page. Good idea. Thanks Burt
We have added a place to report seat belt success stories on the Seat Belt Home page. If a seat belt saved you tell the story. If a seat belt saved a firefighter you know or love tell the story. Let every firefighter know that seat belts work.
What about the salesmen and/or the companies that build fire trucks that sell a fire truck to fire depts and the seat belts are not long enough to fit the firemen. For instance, we have a 2000 Ferrarra, 5 man cab, the seat belts for the 3 in back will not fit our firemen. They will not fit the smallest man on our dept without his gear on. The truck is 7 years old, as Safety Officer I have tried to implement the safety belt program but am getting no results. Talked to Farrara they said this is Freightliner”s responsibility, Freightliner says it is Farrara’s responsibilty. The 2000 fire truck does have after market seats 911. Now what do I do??
I encourage all cheifs to talk with local police departments and even when a firefighter is in pov if they are not wereing seat belts and their is a seat belt law in effect tell the police dont give your firemen slack for not having them on ticket them my cheif has done this and 75% of the department members it is now habbit to put them on its like traing them with SCBA wear them ur life depends on it.
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