On June 20, the Fresno, Calif., fire and police departments increased enforcement of the law requiring motorist to pull to the right for emergency vehicles. Fresno Fire Chief Randy Bruegman said that there has been an increase in the number drivers failing to do so. To combat this behavior, police officers will be stationed near fire stations throughout the city, follow apparatus to scenes when dispatched and issue tickets to drivers who do not pull over.

"Our police department is nationally recognized for its drunk driving and speed enforcement, so this is just another piece of their puzzle," Bruegman said. "Since they started aggressive enforcement of [those laws] three years ago, our traffic deaths have dropped over 50%. We've seen a fairly dramatic behavioral change because people see that there are officers patrolling with their main enforcement of traffic violations. Drivers know that if police are going to enforce failure to yield for emergency vehicles as well, then I think over time we'll see the behavior change."

The officers' presence was continuous for the first week, and the practice will remain ongoing as situations in the city allow. Several tickets were issued each day in the first few days of this stricter enforcement.

"We've focused on travel times," said Bruegman. "We have a motto in the fire service here, 'Four minutes to excellence.' We've wrapped all our strategic planning efforts into putting a fire company there within four minutes of dispatch. When we rolled this out, we focused on 'every second counts,' because we've already ingrained the idea of 'pull to the right for sirens and lights' through public service announcements. We want the population to think about response times."