It has been another tough morning for the Adelphia Fire Company. For the third time in as many weeks, we have had to face tragedy on the roads of our fire district. As I sit here at my computer, pounding the keys and staring at the screen, I have just recently returned from the third fatal accident call of the month for my volunteer fire company.

Just after coming back from the fire call, I picked up our local newspaper, The Asbury Park Press, and sat down to enjoy an early morning cup of coffee. I almost spit out the contents of my first swig when I read the screaming headline on the front page, "Fatal Crashes Soar in Monmouth County!" The article went on to explain that while crashes had dipped as a whole on a statewide basis in New Jersey, Monmouth County had experienced a 24 percent increase in motor vehicle fatalities during 1999. I can vouch for the fact that 2001 isn’t looking much better.

I don’t know folks, maybe it’s just me, but it seems like every time you and I hop into our cars and head for the open road that we are just one step away from death and destruction. There has been an increasing focus on the dangers that we as emergency responders face as we roll out the front door of the station to do our jobs.

Think about it. Stories about the number of fire, EMS, and police personnel who are being struck and killed on the highways of our nation seem to be leaping off the pages of our magazines and the screens of our computers. The same holds true for the growing litany of injuries to our people as they work to make the highways safe for their fellow citizens.

We have to face the reality that the world outside of our fire stations is a battle zone. At Firehouse.Com, in his excellent commentary on the issue of highway-related deaths and injuries to fire and EMS personnel, Jack Sullivan stated, "They're out there. ‘They’ are the drivers who are impaired by drugs, alcohol, medication, or lack of sleep, and the drivers who are distracted by cell phones, screaming children, their lunch, their morning coffee, and / or sun glare." And I would add to his list, people who just do not give a damn for anyone or anything other than themselves. As a body of emergency service responders, we better wake up to this fact and wake up real soon.

Fate has placed a very personal face on all of this for me. I received an important e-mail back in December from my buddy Carson Wilkerson, training officer for the Kenosha Wisconsin Fire Department. It seems that his son David and a brother firefighter from the Grand Prairie Fire Department were struck by a motor vehicle at the scene of a highway accident.

They were actually very lucky neither was seriously injured, this was attributed to the fact that they were wearing full protective gear. Having had their helmets on definitely helped to head off serious injuries. This is real personal for me. I have known David for a number of years, having met him at FDIC on more than one occasion, going back to his days as an explorer scout in the local fire explorer post.

While the results of this incident had a less severe outcome than the tragedy that struck home in Chicago when they lost a Lieutenant to an inattentive driver back in December, the fact that it even happened is unacceptable. We in the emergency service world have to wake up to the fact that each time we leave our stations, we are entering a world filled with dangerous people operating high speed missiles. These people don’t know who we are as individuals, and how dedicated to our work we might be, they are people who just do not give a damn for anyone or anything other than themselves.

I have been responding to motor vehicle accidents since March of 1964, and it doesn’t seem like anything has changed. People are still driving cars. People still speed. The rules of physical science still apply to bodies in motion. And cars still hit each other. But when you think about it, a great deal has changed.

Bearing in mind that I have lived most of my life in the same place, let me use the area where I live as a microcosmic example of how things have changed around our country. The Howell Township of my youth was 64 square miles of land located in Central New Jersey. At that time it consisted mainly of farms, and had a population of about 2,000 people. The major north/south highway was two-lane U.S. Highway 9. The main east/west road was New Jersey Route 33. Our fire department had approximately 50-60 responses annually. There was the occasional fatal highway accident. But they were the exception, rather than the rule.

The Howell Township of 2001 is a decidedly different community. The 2000 population estimates hover around 45,000. U.S. Highway 9 is now a dualized thoroughfare, with a number of high-speed intersections. Where there were once 20 or so working farms in our fire district (now one of five such districts in Howell Township), only four farms now survive. And two of those are scheduled for development. I estimate that more than 2,500 units of housing have been built within one air mile of my home in the last 30 years. And our fire company is now responding to more than 300 calls per year.

So what has changed? A great deal. Society is moving at a much faster pace. There are five hundred things for everyone to experience, yet there are still only 24 hours in any given day. The answer to this quandary is quite simple for far too many people, live life at a faster pace. Zoom from place to place. The hell with anyone who happens to stumble into their path, and full speed ahead. Why? Because these are people who just do not give a damn for anyone or anything other than themselves

Because of the population boom, more people are fighting for a place on the finite amount of available highway space. I wonder if there is a rule that says that traffic must come to a standstill before any new roads can be built. I happen to live on a major county highway, only 300 yards from the fire station. Yet because of traffic and inconsiderate drivers, people who just do not give a damn for anyone or anything other than themselves, it can sometimes take me about two to three minutes to get to the fire station. The same thing is happening to my buddies who are responding from the opposite direction. The result is an increased time to get the first unit on the road.

Going back to the Asbury Park Press article on Monmouth County, here are a few of the comments from county residents that convey the thoughts that I am working to create in this commentary.

"People used to be a lot more polite on the roads, but they are not anymore" "I have seen an influx of lunatics since I moved to Howell Township 20 years ago" (Imagine the influx I have seen in the 36 years that I have spent behind the wheel.) "It’s a change for the worse, people have no consideration for other drivers."

Of great importance to those of us who leave our vehicles and seek to direct or control traffic, nearly 20 percent of those traffic deaths involved pedestrians. You are standing there on the highway, unprotected, with targets painted on all sides of your body. If you think that I am being overly dramatic, you do not belong out there working on the highways of our country.

It is also critical to realize that every one of those motor vehicle operators is living in an individual steel incased world of their own creation. I have seen people reading the paper, applying makeup, smearing on lipstick, and talking on the cell phone. Usually they are engaged in some combination of the above, all being done while making a left turn in front of my fire engine. They are also people who just do not give a damn for anyone or anything other than themselves.

When we do get on the road, we are forced to maneuver our apparatus through the same traffic we had to fight to reach the fire station. All of this adds up to an increased risk for our personnel. The trouble is, far too many of us fail to take this into account. Ladies and gentleman, it is a war out there. If you take any sort of a different view toward responding to emergencies in this new millennium, you are risking a catastrophe, either personally or organizationally.

My webmaster, Bruce Lukaszewicz and I can recall attending a line of duty funeral back in 1993. A brother Howell Township Firefighter, Fire Policeman, and Ex-Chief John H. Somay of the Southard Fire Department was struck and killed by an inattentive motorist while directing traffic at the scene of a brush fire. He was just about to leave on a vacation trip with his wife when the fire call came in. Putting his own life on hold, he responded to help the fire department he had served for so many years. And because one particular driver was too damned busy to worry about paying attention to the road in front of him, a good man died.

This scenario has played itself out time and again in the months and years since our own tragedy here in Howell Township. In his outstanding commentary at Firehouse.Com, Jack Sullivan listed 22 incidents in the year 2000, where firefighters or EMT’s were struck by motor vehicles. If you add the one that involved my buddy’s son and his co-worker, you have 23. How many more of these types of incidents remain unknown, because there were no injuries, or because they never made it into anyone’s database? Besides, these are just fire and EMS personnel. How many more deaths and injuries have also occurred among our associates in the law enforcement world?

I am part of a working group sponsored by the Cumberland Valley Volunteer Fireman’s Association that has highway safety as its central focus. It is our intention to partner the strengths of a number of people, in order to create an impact on the issue of deaths and injuries in the highway environment. We will be developing a training effort to address this serious operational issue. We will be looking for help from anyone and anywhere.

It is not going to get better any time soon. So we have to proactively work to be sure that our emergency service folks are not sacrificed on the altar of our dangerous highways. Let me close with a recapitulation of Mr. Sullivan’s cogent wisdom. "They're out there. ‘They’ are the drivers who are impaired by drugs, alcohol, medication, or lack of sleep, and the drivers who are distracted by cell phones, screaming children, their lunch, their morning coffee, and / or sun glare."

And they don’t give a damn about you and me!