It’s dangerous on today’s roadways. Car swallowing pot holes and aggressive drivers are making a stroll down the road nerve racking. Add to the mix distracted drivers and the formula is ready for vehicle accidents. You’ve been caught in the backups and when you arrive you see emergency services personnel in action.
Shrewsbury Volunteers spends hundreds of hours on the scene of vehicle accidents. Our personnel work to maintain safe travel lanes while tending to injured people. Fire, EMS and Police personnel depend on each other to stay safe. What can we do to make it safer for our members and let motorists know in ADVANCE of the back up there is trouble ahead? Enter technology.
Shrewsbury Volunteers, the first department in the region, has placed devices on board our apparatus that connects to WAZE (the most used traffic app in the US) and other traffic apps to alert you about accidents ahead. We have partnered with HAAS Alert to make the incident scene more visible to all who travel near it. A device onboard our fire apparatus activates when we are responding and on location of an emergency. This device sends a signal to the mobile applications used for traffic monitoring, like WAZE, and posts the incident on the map. You will see an icon showing a “Hazard Ahead” and a description of an emergency event on location. The motorists app will alert them in advance of the incident which will slow them down prior to the accident or cause them to divert their travel to another road.
Our personnel’s safety is #1. We use every option available to keep us safe on the scene. We now have a connection with motorists BEFORE they drive into the accident area. This will give them notice to slow down and could possibly save one of our members lives. Keep the emergency services personnel safe by slowing down at accident scenes, obey law enforcement and other traffic personnel, and drive to arrive alive. Our members and their loved ones thank you.
