As I sit here in my office, two types of communications seem to be arriving with a great regularity. The first round of messages belongs to that happy group wherein Holiday Greetings are sent and received. In line with that, please accept the best wishes from all of us here at the Respondersafety.com family for a safe, happy, and productive Holiday Season.
Sadly, the other group of messages that seem to be arriving with an ever increasing regularity comes in the form of death and injury reports involving struck-by incidents. After a quiet period earlier this fall, we have begun to see a frightening increase in the number of these sad events.
People are on the move during the Holiday Season. They have many places to go and always seem to be in a hurry to get somewhere. They have a great deal on their minds. I can promise you that one thought they do not have on their minds is you - the emergency service worker at the scene of a highway emergency!
As you operate at the scene of a highway emergency, you are nothing more than a road block on the way to where these people want to go. You have nothing to do with what is on their minds. Sadly you are just something that is in their way.
People in a rush do not pause to think that maybe you and I are doing the best that we can to keep traffic moving. They just get mad and do dumb things.
I cannot tell you how many evil remarks and obscene gestures I have received over the years as I sought to keep traffic moving at highway emergencies.
I would suppose that a lot of these problems also have something to do with the weather, and the problems it creates. A Deputy Sheriff died up in northern New York after he was struck by an out of control motor vehicle. He had stopped to offer assistance to a car that had slid off the road in a snow storm, and was struck and killed by a car that slid out of control on the snowy interstate highway.
Many areas have already been struck by a round of bad weather. Whether the problem is snow, rain, sleet, or hail, the danger is all the same. Many people just do not know how to drive under these conditions. You and I are at risk because of their ignorance and unsafe acts. We cannot afford to let down our guard for a single instant.
One of the most striking highway safety video clips that I have seen in a long time comes to us from Idaho. In the video that many of us saw on the national media, two police officers just barely manage to get out of the way as an out-of-control vehicle comes sliding at them on the ice, blasting through the vehicles that had already suffered an accident. Steve Austin is working with that police department in an attempt to secure that video for use on our website.
I want to urge you to use every ounce of training that you have received over the years on how to operate safely at the scene of highway emergencies. Do not expect people to see you, and do not expect them to care about you.
It is up to you to practice what we preach. We here at Respondersafety.com want you to be alive and well, so that you can enjoy the joy of the Holiday Season. Be careful out there.