recoiloperated

I like how when TC folded the Commissioner came out and said that FDNY had foreseen this scenario and made plans for it; in reality their plan was just to work their existing crews to death for as long as needed until someone came up with another idea.

This is much more than open competitive bidding. TranCare is a sinking ship. Good move for NR.

Over the past year they have lost multiple major NYC contracts, had to skip payday several times and even sold their assets down in Maryland/ Delaware.

While EMS being the red headed step child does cause issues like this, I do not believe this is one of those circumstances.

NR is lucky to have Empress. They are an outstanding company, especially when compared to others out there. TransCare hires anybody with a pulse, while you actually have to be selected by Empress. They have higher training standards, better equipement and run a true 'high performance' system.

TC's hiring standards are only low for the "Core" side of the business (interfacility transport). In order to work on the 911 side of the business you have to be at the company for at least 6 months with no disciplinary or performance issues and then you're put on a waiting list to move over. Then you have to interview again with one of the 911 supervisors and take a skills/scenario test before they'll give you a 911 spot.

MetroCare

I couldn't read the full article, but I would think they are the dark blue, four door dump trucks. There is one stationed at Stewart airport. Two wheel drive, with red instead of amber lights, and the spare tire mount welded into the middle of the dump bed. I have pictures on my phone, I'll try to put them on here.

Similar to the ones the city has for flooding?

Anyone know which tillers these would be replacing and how many this bid is good for? I thought all of them got replaced a couple of years ago?

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcas/downloads/pdf/ocp/1500533.pdf

The bid is 'only' $1.4M for the apparatus so I'd guess they're only replacing one at this time.

Hope they work out better for the troopers than they have for Syracuse PD. The ones here are all squeaking, rattling, and clanging their way around the city after only a few years on the road.

Crash tests aren't supposed to be pretty. Vehicles are supposed to deform to dissipate the energy of the crash. Crushed beyond recognition but how was the passenger compartment? What was the force remaining that could be transferred to the occupants?

Physical appearance doesn't have anything to do with survivability.

Between FF1, FF2, and AVET along with my experience on the job I do have an understanding of crumple zones and their function. To illustrate my point, here is a picture I took at my last job:

This was a sub-30mph offset collision in which the front driver's side wheel intruded into the passenger compartment and caused injuries to the driver's legs.

If I'm driving down the road and witness an accident where I can potentially render aid, then I would certainly stop if safe to do so. If I'm driving down the road and see local emergency crews on the scene of an accident, I'm going to keep on driving. I find it hard to believe that the IC was so desperate that they abandoned everything they know about ICS, department guidelines, state laws, and insurance liability and just threw two unknown people from out of state who claimed to be firefighters on a rig. This was a vehicle fire, not a Russian invasion.

How about, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state..."? We no longer have militia because they are no longer necessary to the security of a free state. Does that invalidate the whole amendment? Again....room for interpretation.

You keep saying this but it's not accurate. Currently 21 states operate a State Guard or State Defense Force which are independent from the National Guard and classified by the federal government as State Militias. They are administered by their state's AG and cannot be called upon to serve as federal troops. These units are volunteer and require you to purchase your own uniforms and equipment and take training on your own time; if that isn't a militia I don't know what is.

http://www.dmna.state.ny.us/nyg/

But for now, the ruling allows Chief Kenneth B. Ellerbe to alter the current system, in which firefighters work for 24 hours and then have three days off. Under the new schedule, firefighters would work three consecutive 12-hour shifts during the day, followed by one day off, then three consecutive 12-hour shifts at night, followed by three days off. The chief has maintained that the new schedule will allow him to save $38 million by cutting the size of the force through attrition.

So basically the chief is admitting that he's purposely designed a schedule that will make life so difficult for his members that many of them will just say "screw it" and quit... and that's his genius plan to save money? Someone tell me how he ended up in this job.

If you believe in that sort of thing, sure.

It's not about what we believe in, unless someone is planning to use it as a $400 flower pot or an office decoration we have to worry about what our chiefs and/or safety officers believe in.

Looks like an old Chrysler air raid siren.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_air_raid_siren

I wonder why they put so many of the lights in the grille and lower grille and not in the headliner. If you're driving a pickup truck you probably wouldn't even be able to see it unless it was 5 car-lengths behind you when it lit up. Sometimes I think it might be good for the person spec'ing lights for vehicles to have at least a basic knowledge of what utility each light has and where to place it for the desired effect rather than the "Well they said I have $10,000 for equipment, so that means I can but X amount of lights!" mentality. There's a small town near me who's radio cars have a full-size red/blue Freedom lightbar on the roof, a full size red/blue interior bar in the rear headliner, and then two double-head red/blue units on the rear parcel shelf in addition to taillight flashers and strobes. At night it looks more like an alien abduction than a traffic stop.

I too have seen the rumor that Chapp. was getting a tanker. I saw it on either massfiretrucks.com or 10-75.net.

Either way, CFD retired and sold E145 in 2013 without a replacement as far as I can tell.

There were some rumblings about getting a tanker but the priority last I knew was to sell R23 and replace it with a Rescue/Engine. The whole issue is complicated by the endless wrangling about buying the property next door to the Bedford Rd. firehouse for a planned expansion. If they purchase any new apparatus now it will have to be housed in the shallow, low-ceilinged upper bays and serious design compromises would have to be made.

My bad. It's a 147" Paraliner per Lifeline's website. Didn't know they only made the E-450's for 158" and longer....good to know, thanks.

I'm just surpised it's not 4x4, and that MarkMets415 hasn't posted more photos yet.

The few 4x4 E-Series ambulances I've seen had a pretty high rear load height, maybe that was a consideration?

Will this get a standard Stiloski's paint job at some point? Being camouflaged is usually less than desirable on an accident scene.

Still not very eye-catching but maybe that's what they want. The old graphics look like they'd be more at home on an Access-A-Ride car than an RMP.

G201 needs a bath

"Not having modern breaking, traction control and stability control is not worth the liability and the potential financial loss (& life loss), particularly if the rig no longer meets the standards that will be used against the dept. in the courts."

What are the modern breaking systems that you are talking about? Also ive seen most of the newer rigs going out of service due to electrical or error codes showing up on the new modern ABS/Traction control that come on these rigs. When it works it is great but when it doesn't work because a 5 dollar sensor than you'll have problems.

Modern systems like discs instead of drums, ABS, brake-based stability control to prevent rollovers, etc. While I'm all for the KISS principle when it comes to vehicle systems, you ignore new "standards" of safety at your own peril. As Bnechis mentioned it's really about what will hold up in court. When your fire chief is on the stand because your department's 1984 Mack slid through a stop sign and killed someone how are they going to explain that you don't have trucks with ABS because older is better and those new systems are too finicky and don't work sometimes?

Let me preface this by saying that I am way out of my comfort zone here. All I know about firetrucks I learned by reading the owners manuals, the apparatus columns in Firehouse and FireRescue magazines, hearing guys complain and, on occasion, having to drive them when there are no real firemen around to do it. I profess no expertise.

Now, it seems odd to have to spend above $500,000 to buy a whole new rig just to get new seals and gaskets and tires. My car lives outside and has 220,000 miles on it, AC works great and has never been touched. Could it cost 1/10 of that ($50,000) to replace every bad seal, gasket and tire on a truck? I wonder what it would cost to make the truck bay into a giant humidor to prevent rot- and guys could store their cigars in there.

About 2005 we did get rid of a 1978 truck, re-built in 1985, due to frame rust- I may be off a bit on the dates. You have seen many many more trucks come and go than I have, but I cannot recall hearing of an agency trading in a rig due to a bad diesel. Maybe twice I have heard of a a "blown" engine- and it is usually sent out for engine re-build.

Dumb question#2 How often are there safety upgrades, and what makes it an official upgrade? Can they say, "Look! new, brighter more visible red paint! Everybody must upgrade!" Suppose 15 years go by and the safety of a 15 year old rig is still acceptable? Or are "upgrades" released in times to maximize sales?

From what little I've seen it's generally the turbos and/or transmission and not the engine itself that wear out first due to the uneven heating/lack of use cited previously. As for the safety upgrades, those are spec'd by the NFPA not the manufacturers so sales shouldn't have anything to do with it, barring any impropriety on the part of the NFPA authors. Some upgrades (red seat belts, red/yellow rear chevrons, reflective panels on the interior of doors...) can easily be added to an existing rig for minimal cost. Adding stability control to a rig that doesn't even have ABS to begin with essentially requires re-engineering the truck's braking system; at that point it's up to your chiefs whether it's worth a $100,000 overhaul plus time out of service or just time to trade it on a shiny new model.

We only had two Chevy's at my last job and while they were reliable they rode like the springs were made of granite; you hit a Bronx pothole with one of them and it felt like you were landing the General Lee after jumping a river.

Unless these turn out to be cheaper. Farewell E-series, 38 years on the same chassis is enough.

Chappaqua

E146 1993 Pierce

R23 1984 Mack/Rescue1

I don't know about the Chevy's but the recently discontinued Ford E-Series vans were riding on a 30 year old chassis. They may have been crash tested but the results were not pretty; I saw more than one of them crushed beyond recognition from what seemed like a low energy collision (in relative terms).

Looks like things are winding down, anyone have a final list of what Westchester units assisted?

The problem with this entire argument is that 99% of EMS personnel are civilians and as such have almost no provision for using deadly force under the law. Unless every EMT is made to take the NYS Peace Officer course and then the Peace Officer w/ Firearms course, and is then designated an armed peace officer by the municipality they operate in and/or are employed by, giving an EMT a firearm in New York is like giving them a "Go Directly to Jail" card. Civilians in NYS have a "duty to retreat," that is if there is any conceivable way for you to remove yourself from a situation without being threatened by imminent death, you're expected to do so. If EMS personnel are threatened by a patient and PD is not on scene they are expected to leave until the scene is made safe. If you find yourself cornered in an apartment bedroom by an aggressive EDP and you decide to use deadly force you're going to have a damn hard time proving to a jury you couldn't have avoided that situation in the first place; no amount of NRA classes will save you from doing a dime upstate for manslaughter.