Indiana law requires you to pull over for emergency response vehicles but sometimes they can surprise you from behind. The South Bend Fire Department is trying to help.
The fire department Wednesday announced it's installing new safety technology in its rigs. It sends a 30-second heads-up to an alert system that comes installed with some newer passenger vehicles, or to the free Waze app that anyone can download.
The department also is adding a feature that lets firetrucks alert each other when responding to calls or during routine activities. In the past 30 days, the department says it recorded 674 instances where two emergency vehicles approached the same intersection at the same time.
Here’s Shannon Pohl, the department’s preventive maintenance coordinator, speaking in a Facebook video.
“There’s an old saying in the fire service that if we cannot make it to a scene safely, we do nobody no good," Pohl says. "It’s an awesome system and we’re really happy that we brought it on board.
The department started installing the systems two years ago and expects to have them in all response vehicles by the end of the year.
