First Responder Distraction a Risk to Other Drivers

March 22nd, 2010. By Hunter West

In the rush to get people to stop texting on their cell phones, playing with their GPS devices or even working the laptop sitting on the passenger seat beside them WHILE DRIVING, a large segment of the driving population has been all but ignored in the debate.

Emergency service workers—the police, firefighters and paramedics who are first responders to an emergency. 

Have you seen inside a modern ambulance lately? Or a police car? It’s a tech heaven.

Computers and keypads, high-end GPS. The list goes on. 

There is little doubt that such rolling technology is having a positive impact on the capacity to respond to an emergency, and to save a life. 

But what has been forgotten—at least until a New York Times article came out on March 11^th drawing attention to the issue—is the potential for distraction by first responders who are multi-tasking behind the wheel and shouldn’t be.

As the article highlighted, drivers are supposed to key in, upload and download information while the vehicle is stopped. Once moving, that task is entrusted to the accompanying paramedic, or police officer. The partner. 

However, there have been instances where the riding paramedic is in the back, attending to the patient. The driver, intent on shuttling a patient in obvious distress to hospital in the quickest time, will not wait for vital information to come before weaving into traffic. Should that data become available while en route—and his partner is in the back—a driver will be inclined to use the keyboard while driving. 

He’s not supposed to. But the real world hardly plays by the rules. 

There have been some horror stories. One paramedic in New York recalls the day when he was rushing to the hospital with a patient and was keying in some information on his dashboard computer. At the last second he looked up and was horrified to see that a pedestrian had stepped onto the street just ahead of him. He WAS able to stop in time. 

Another first responder was doing the exact same thing, only this time he didn’t escape slamming into the back of a car just ahead, stopped in traffic. The driver of the car was seriously hurt. 

In 2008 an emergency medical tech was consulting his GPS screen when he inadvertently swerved and struck the side of a parked flatbed. The impact sheered off the side of the ambulance and left his partner paralyzed. 

The marvel of modern technology, and its mobility, has been a boon to the first-responder professions. Seconds count, and studies have shown that such technology can cut response times by as much as 30 seconds. In life-or-death situations, where seconds count, 30 seconds can be an eternity. 

But then there is the distraction of risk—just as it is for the rest of us who have cell phones, and GPS devices in passenger cars that are getting increasingly complex themselves. And while there are rules, it is human nature to flaunt them from time to time.

One paramedic, tending to a patient in the back of the ambulance, caught his partner up front checking the baseball scores on the on-board computer screen while driving. 

Don’t manufacturers think of this stuff when they cram gobs of instant-technology into vehicles? For my money, I don’t care if you’re a police officer, a paramedic or a firefighter. Job One, for the individual who is behind the wheel of a moving vehicle, is DRIVING. Not texting, not using the keypad. D-R-I-V-E. Eyes on the road. 

Advocates of the technology will say that in the event of an emergency, such activity could save a life. True, but what’s the point of saving a life when you risk TAKING a life needlessly in the process? 

In the case of ambulances, how about having THREE first responders in the truck? One to drive, one to tend to the patient in back, and one to work the keypad and GPS. 

In a perfect world, maybe. But as we all know… 

Officer Shawn Chase, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, said it best. “There’s no way you could [use such technology while driving] without eventually running into something.” 

Amen.

This was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 8:36 am and is filed under Accidents, Automotive . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.