From the 2004 incident in Illinois where apparatus from two fire departments collided, resulting in one firefighter fatality, to a recent crash involving a Houston engine and truck company that resulted in one civilian fatality, vehicle collisions involving fire apparatus garner a significant amount of attention, both within and outside the fire service. Such collisions can damage both hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and public trust in the fire service.

High-profile collisions have become the bases for department and company drills. A search of the National Fire Fighter Near-Miss Reporting System in the vehicle-event category provides more than 400 occurrences for departments from all points in the industry. Users can focus on incidents that occurred in departments that have like profiles (e.g., paid municipal or combination, mostly volunteer). This provides for a "just like us" review approach that is instrumental in delivering a message with immediate relativity.

The system's reports also can be grouped by like contributing factors. This grouping lets training officers, safety officers and company officers concentrate on modifying specific behaviors (aggressive driving, poor driving techniques) or demonstrating the value of adhering to best practices (wearing seatbelts, good hand placement on the steering wheel, scanning, and such).

The firefighters in the 412 vehicle events, regardless of pay status, time with the department, or rank, all survived their near miss. The opportunity to learn from examples where no lives are lost should be the most powerful of motivators for using near-miss reports to improve performance.

For more information, visit the National Fire Fighter Near-Miss Reporting System Web site.