14 Groups issue joint statement on EMS use of lights, sirens (2022) | Hacker News Reader

14 Groups issue joint statement on EMS use of lights, sirens (2022)

ems1.com

22 points1970-01-0128 comments

> In 2009, there were 1,579 ambulance crash injuries (2), and most EMS vehicle crashes occur when driving with lights and siren (L&S) (3).

Is it just me or is this particular statistic useless without the total number of ambulance calls and/or the percentage of calls where that have driving with lights and siren?

The closest thing i can find is the Los Angeles Fire Department responds "to roughly 800 to 1,000 emergency medical calls each day."

How many lives were saved due to Lights and sirens being on though ?

Less than 6.9%, according to the article.

How many babies were born due to alcohol consumption? Probably more than the amount of people killed.

In other words, such metrics are usually, but not always, orthogonal to the actual discussion as the choice is not between L&S on or L&S off. I would say that such comparisons are helpful for fully yes-or-no options, such as comparing the rate of vehicular fatalities between human-driven and machine-driven automobiles.

Isn't that what the paper is fighting for though, or or off ?

These accidents are likely happening in intersections where the emergency vehicle is running a red light and likely speeding. Take away the lights and sirens and accidents may go up assuming they are still running red lights.

Some-time ambulance person and crash survivor here[0]. I am delighted to hear of this change, and am also glad to see evidence-based decisions about medical work outside of clinical environments. If you think other drivers drive badly in normal traffic, you should about double that level for the view of traffic from a vehicle using lights and siren. Were it not for patient confidentiality and liability, a channel collecting dashcam footage from fire and EMS vehicles would be both popular and disturbing. [0] No serious injuries to any of the 5 participants, but a truly massive amount of paperwork.

Such channels already exist, at least for EMS teams in the UK and the Netherlands, where they at least seem to be semi-sanctioned.

Actually, Ambuchannel was forced to remove his videos by his employer. The police seems to have a few sanctioned channels though.

There's also Brandweer Lunteren, which had to shut down for a while recently but seems to be sanctioned now. Not much traffic footage there though, being a pretty small town in the Netherlands.

https://youtu.be/if6GD9OAp88?si=rkl1YfkTpaazIPDF

Here's a big channel in the UK that does these sorts of videos with detailed analysis of driving. I'm usually pretty impressed by the behaviour of motorists in these

A good percentage of drivers simply do not pay attention to what they're doing or bother to look where they are going. This morning I was out helping my crew put up 4 spans of drop fibre along a busy highway. For each span we would block the driveways to prevent cars from entering and getting tangled up in the cable while it was being installed. Not even 2 minutes into getting the first drop ready did a driver perform a left turn into a fully blocked entrance that had a bunch of traffic cones and myself in hi-vis gear. The driver admitted that he did not even look at where he was going before completing a turn that he couldn't complete without hitting me. Being involved in telecom construction has taught me just how many drivers on the road are unsafe, and the number is not small. This is exactly why we scheduled this job for early on a Sunday morning: so that we could do the work safely while minimizing number of drivers around in an attempt to reduce the "stupid" factor. No amount of signs and flashing lights will help when idiots don't look where they're going. <sigh>

> Alternatively, L&S [lights and siren] response increases the chance of an EMS vehicle crash by 50% and almost triples the chance of crash during patient transport

Wow.

So, better outcome to drive to hospital instead of calling for ambulance.

I can’t tell if you’re being facetious so apologies if this went over my head, but no, almost certainly not, but the stats in the article don’t give enough context to make that decision.

Wouldn't it depend on injury, your location, and local knowledge of the area? A simple broken arm 8km from the hospital where I am means call a friend - ambulances are allocated by severity and life-threatening-ness. You may be way down the list of priorities.

I think basically my internal heuristic is “do I need someone to come HERE to help fix this?”

If the answer is no, then maybe call a friend.

> drive to hospital instead of calling for ambulance

When some hospitals reach their capacity, they'll instruct ambulances to go to another hospital, which could be a worse hospital or much further away. If you're able to drive yourself or get someone to drive you, you can go to the closer/better hospital, and it's my understanding that they cannot turn you away if it's an emergency.

Ambulance admission vs 'Walking injured' admission have different triage queues though, so by taking yourself to hospital to avoid 'going to a bad hospital' you're almost certainly nerfing your care.

They can’t turn you away at emergency, but they can force you to wait an unbounded time to be seen if their triage screening puts you behind other patients and there is enough flow of patients that triage higher to consume their capacity.

Another stat which is not particularly helpful out of context. Per mile driven, per per job, per hour of service? Are there any external factors that might influence this (e.g. are a significant proportion of these ambulances getting hit by drunk drivers at night time).

I also don’t see a break down of lights OR sirens (not sure in the US, but in Europe often at night, emergency vehicles operate without sirens unless the driver believes it necessary).

There’s also a statement that the majority of these accidents happen at intersections and traffic signals, but does not consider that it is likely the number would be higher without lights and sirens, and instead likely this is caused by emergency vehicles operating outside the normal of driving.

I am not an expert in this, and these 14 groups surely seem to be, but the statement’s statistics don’t do much to help support their argument.

Your point is valid, but it’s an interesting note that the document in the linked page reads like a summary, which it probably is. It’s probably the case here, as with most summaries, that some detail has been omitted for brevity.

I wonder if those statistics are covered in more detail in the actual studies being referenced.

I wonder if this has to do with the insanely bright LED lights used on emergency vehicles now. I can't imagine being in a car at night and having photosensitivity for migraines or even worse epilepsy. it's so bright on some I can't focus on driving.

What id really like to know is if this was studied before LED strobes and to compare it specifically for that.

It's mostly other drivers over reacting to be if help?

I don't have any special sensitivity to light that I'm aware of, at least in any other aspect of daily life, but I can't even look in the general direction of emergency vehicles with all lights blazing at night, and it presents a real hazard for me when trying to navigate around them.

I don't think they consider how dazzling the lights can be. Some municipalities seem to be aware of this, but others aren't.

I also find them dazzling and have to avert my eyes. It's hard to imagine that looking away is helping with safety.

> Read the full statement below.

I'd rather read a summary of key points, thanks.

My mind first went to the hazards of driving around disorienting, overly bright 1st responder beacons - but that might be just LEO and not fire/rescue.

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