Keep First Responders Safe From Distracted Drivers
It’s important to keep first responders safe. This May, during the annual American Towmen Tow Show in Las Vegas, John D, the ‘Tow Ninja,’ will don an orange traffic cone costume and zipline backward down the strip to publicize his mission, protecting our emergency responders and highway crews from distracted drivers.
It’s a mission with meaning. Every day, two of these vital workers are struck on the job by a driver. Every fifth day, one will die. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) reports that 487 workers have been struck and killed by cars since 2020, and the numbers for 2024 are tracking to exceed last year’s count.
It nearly happened to John D.
In April of 2015, a distracted driver struck John on a work site, leaving him with a broken shoulder, neck injuries, and chronic headaches.
Every second you spend checking a text, reaching for a cookie, chatting with a passenger, or adjusting your dash controls can send you barreling into a work detail, clipping an inspector or traffic flagger, or striking an officer or firefighter working an accident scene.
Traffic Safety Advisor Todd Leiss blames a lot of it on the new options now available in most vehicles. Buttonless controls for audio and temperature, larger screens for GPS app display, and even Zoom and social media can now be found on many dashboards. “These tech conveniences come at a cost,” he notes. “We can do more behind the wheel than our bodies can handle.”
Over the years, he’s documented accidents caused by everything from applying make-up or eating a sandwich to hosting a business meeting. “We’re not being productive,” he warns. “We’re being dangerous. That meeting can wait. Finish your lunch when you pull over!”
Distracted drivers can hurt an entire community. Firefighters and police often use their vehicles as shields for workers. The cost to replace a new piece of fire apparatus can be between $750,000 and $2 million, with up to a four—or five-year waiting period. The cost to replace a struck police car could be $125,000 to $150,000, with an 18-month waiting period. That’s time the local community has to go without that vital equipment, endangering all residents.
Many of these incidents go unreported. The Emergency Responder Safety Institute (ERSI) (www.respondersafety.com), a committee of the Cumberland Valley Volunteer Firefighters Association (CVVFA), has worked for years to develop a better reporting site to help analyze how and where first responders are being struck, injured, and killed.
One recent survey they conducted, polling 1,000 drivers ages 25 and older driving with children, found that texts and phone calls were the top two driving distractions. Nearly two-thirds of respondents admitted to programming a navigation system while driving alone and more than half of the parents surveyed admitted to talking on the phone while driving. These numbers dropped when their children were passengers; they were less likely to use tech when driving them.
Raising awareness and education is the key to preventing distracted driver accidents, and that means teaching both drivers and first responders.
EndDD.org offers teen distracted driving presentations for schools, businesses or community groups and its lesson plans to parents or youth leaders. They also join other advocates in sponsoring an annual “Do Not Disturb While Driving Day” for teens and adults to encourage us to switch our phones to Do Not Disturb and block push notifications while we’re behind the wheel.
In a USDOT study, the EndDD.org teen presentation was found to be effective in teaching students about distracted driving. After the course, teens were not only more likely to intervene when their drivers drove distracted, but it also reduced their parents’ distracted driving behaviors.
Making an active gesture, such as taking a pledge to avoid driving distractions, works for adults, too. Simple awareness carries a lot of weight in reducing distracted driving. EndDD.org has a printable Family Safe Driving Agreement with a checklist of steps to avoid being a distracted driver and to protect us all from these preventable crashes.
Education doesn’t end with drivers. First responders and emergency crews have free training courses available to help reduce their risk while on the job.
ResponderSafety.com offers training resources with links to the Responder Safety Network and to national and state Traffic Incident Management programs. There’s even a ‘Train the Trainer: How to Give Effective Distracted Driving Presentations’ for traffic safety educators.
In the end, reducing distracted driver accidents come down to us putting down the phone, the make-up brush or mobile phone. As Todd Leiss puts it, “Eyes on the road, hands on the wheel. When you get into your vehicle, your job is to be a driver.”
