Once again it is time for us to share the events of the world of highway safety with you. It has been a month where no one has died as a result of a highway-related incident within the emergency services. That is a good thing. Whether it was luck or not will always remain as an open question.

What I know for sure is that Steve Austin, Jack Sullivan and Dennis Rubin presented a truly interesting Internet training session on Monday May 20. Protecting Emergency Responders on the Highways delivered a wide array of information on the critical issues surrounding responder safety on our highways.

We would like to express our since thanks to our friends at the International Association of Fire Chiefs for their support in delivering the "Struck By On The Highway" training session. Some of the topics that were covered included:

• How to keep responders safe even during poor weather conditions
• How engineering controls and human behavior affect on-scene safety
• Ways to adapt others' checklists and SOPs for your own department
• Which states have enacted laws to punish impaired or reckless drivers
• Details about a new training video coming this summer
• How former Norfolk Fire Chief Dennis Rubin and his department are recovering and adapting following a March incident where two fire fighters were struck battling a car fire in dense fog
• Why law-enforcement personnel can be your best defense or a huge danger-and how to convert those who need it.

It is critical for us to continue getting our message out to the fire, police, and EMS communities. We are looking to broaden our visibility and increase our impact in the research and training of our people. The key is building partnerships.

Steve and I will be traveling this summer in pursuit of partnering and marketing opportunities. On Saturday August 10, we will be part of an educational program in Wilson, North Carolina. We will be providing more information on this event in an upcoming column. We would ask you to set that date aside if you happen to live anywhere in that region.

Respondersafety.com will also be exhibiting at the International Association of Fire Chiefs Fire Rescue International conference in Kansas City. Please stop by and say hello.

Out in the real world, a number of truly strange and tragic events occurred during the past few weeks. A citizen was killed down in Mississippi when he rammed his car into the back of a fire department tanker. While no responders were injured in this incident, it shows just how suddenly an average emergency response can become a tragedy. .

In early May, a Utah State Highway Patrol trooper was injured when his cruiser was struck in the rear by a speeding SUV driver. The SUV, its driver apparently asleep, slammed into the cruiser and knocked it into the vehicle he had pulled over on a motor vehicle stop. The cruiser's frame nearly buckled. Neither the SUV driver nor the woman the trooper had stopped were seriously injured. We need to keep our guard up at all times

A couple of past tragedies also came back into the news during the last week in May. The Associated Press reports that a settlement was reached between the Ford Motor Company and the families of two Arizona Department of Public Safety officers who were killed when their cruisers were struck from behind at high rates of speed and burst into flames.

Floyd (Skip) Fink and Juan Cruz were both killed when their patrol vehicles were struck from behind by motorists who were traveling at high rates of speed. The Associated Press also reported that there was no admission of guilt by Ford in the two cases. It was also reported that other suits were settled in Massachusetts and Florida, while others are still pending in Florida and Louisiana. Tragedy can strike when we least expect it.

I had wanted to share the facts of a really strange story with you about an incident that happened out in the Western part of America. However, my computer dog ate my computer research file on that one. The bare bones of the story are this. A highway patrolman was out of his vehicle directing traffic on an interstate highway. Suddenly he saw a small aircraft attempting to make an emergency landing on that very same interstate.

Fortunately the story has a happy ending. The pilot landed the plane safely. The highway patrolman was not struck. No car on the ground was damaged. The moral to this story is really simple. When we here at Respondersafety.com tell you to keep your eyes open and operate by the rules of highway safety, make sure that those rules require you to glance up and around periodically. Truth is truly stranger than fiction.