Motor-vehicle crashes are responsible for more line-of-duty deaths than any single cause except cardiac arrest. From 1997 to 2006, an average 21 firefighters died each year in motor-vehicle crashes.

Despite its efforts, the fire service has made little progress in curbing the number of crash-related LODDs. In fact, the past five years have been some of the deadliest in a decade, with an average of 24 LODDs from vehicle crashes. Reports show that at least two-thirds of the firefighters killed in vehicle crashes weren't wearing seatbelts. This means approximately 14 of every 100 firefighters who die in the line of duty are killed in motor-vehicle crashes while not wearing seatbelts.

Why do we have such a problem with firefighters not wearing seatbelts? Dr. Burton Clark, management science program chair at the National Fire Academy, believes the issue is one of culture and policy. Some fire departments either don't have policies requiring seatbelt use or don't enforce the policies they have. Even with a perfect policy and good enforcement, however, there still will be forgotten seatbelts at 3 a.m. or during a water-shuttle operation.

Lt. Michael Wilbur of the New York City Fire Department has a couple of takes on the seatbelt issue. He believes one problem is that seats and seatbelts on fire apparatus are poorly designed. Seats aren't wide enough and many are too upright, and seatbelts sometimes are difficult to reach and buckle. Seatbelts also become tangled in SCBA straps.

But firefighters can buckle a seatbelt for the short ride to a call. Once I was assigned to a five-person engine company. I'm 6 feet, 6 inches tall, and the other two firefighters were 6 feet, 3 inches tall and 6 feet, 9 inches tall. There were arms and legs flying about, but we all managed to don our gear and buckle our seatbelts in an enclosed cab — this was back in the not-so-distant past when we donned bunker gear while the engine was moving. If firefighters want to buckle their seatbelts, they will. If a firefighter is buckling every time, he or she knows exactly where to reach for the belt and exactly where to latch it.

Wilbur has another idea, and it echoes Clark's belief in a culture problem. Firefighters know they may be exposed to hepatitis, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. They are willing to work next to traffic on the side of interstate highways and in buildings that are on fire. When off duty, many firefighters participate in other hazardous activities, such as riding motorcycles. Firefighters are risk takers, yet on the road trip to risking their lives, they are expected to be seated with their seatbelts buckled. This is contradictory.

Fire service leaders perpetually try to make the fireground as safe as possible through a number of means, including training, pre-incident planning, technology upgrades and procedural adjustments. Making the ride from the station to the call and back as safe as possible deserves no less attention. To that end, fire apparatus should be equipped with an electromechanical seatbelt monitoring system that ensures firefighters are seated and belted.

Current seatbelt monitoring systems only provide information. Most show if a seat is occupied and if the seatbelt is fastened. This information is of little value, especially if the driver or company officer is unwilling to make firefighters remain seated with seatbelts buckled. The 2009 revision of NFPA 1901, Automotive Fire Apparatus, features a vehicle data recorder proposal. The only thing the VDR will do that current systems don't is provide a 48-hour record of seat occupancy and seatbelt status. Fire administrators can use this information to target spot checks. Unless fire departments are willing to use the data for that purpose, the VDR is little more than a suggestion that firefighters wear seatbelts.

Fire departments unwilling to even write a seatbelt policy are unlikely to use the VDR for enforcement purposes. Also, language in NFPA 1901 makes no reference to a VDR's ability to detect the correct sit-and-buckle sequence that would thwart firefighters from buckling the seatbelt behind their backs or behind their seat. It also does not require any monitoring that would detect firefighters standing up putting on gear.

Wilbur believes VDR information will be used by insurance companies to deny claims for firefighters not wearing seatbelts at the time of a crash. Perhaps this argument will sway firefighters who care more about the families they'll leave behind than they do about themselves to buckle up and ensure beneficiaries are paid. But the VDR is still no guarantee that the water-shuttle driver or the firefighter running his 15th call at 3 a.m. will buckle up.

The fire service needs to take advantage of available technologies that can ensure firefighters are seated and properly buckled any time an apparatus is moving. Doing so is no more complicated than the interlock systems that have been used for years on aerial ladders.

Javad Mokhbery is president of Futek Advanced Sensor Technology in Irvine, Calif. Mokhbery wants to develop a sensor system that guarantees firefighters are properly seated and buckled when an apparatus is in motion. The system would include a matrix of sensors in seats and on floors, seatbelt latches and seatbelt webbing spools. Seat sensors detect the presence of a firefighter in the seat, similar to current sensors, with a weight threshold of about 60 pounds so that turnout gear or a bag of groceries is not mistaken for a firefighter. Sensors in the floors prevent firefighters from standing to don gear en route to a call. Again, a weight threshold would be established. Latch sensors determine if a seatbelt is fastened. Webbing spool sensors monitor the length of webbing that is pulled out; if not enough is pulled to go in front of a firefighter, the system will see a fault. Firefighters can't circumvent the monitoring system by fastening the belt behind the back or behind the seat. The sensors would all have to agree on sequence. If a seatbelt was buckled before the seat was occupied, a fault would result.

The key point to the system is its ability to interlock with the apparatus' automatic transmission. About 90% of fire apparatus sold in the past 10 years are equipped with automatic transmissions. If the system detects a fault, the transmission shifts to neutral. As soon as the fault is cleared (someone sits down or fastens their seatbelt) the transmission will re-engage.

Some will see this as extreme and will object to letting a computer have control of the transmission. Other critics are going to claim that the apparatus may need to be moved in a hurry to avoid being crushed by a collapsing building. First, having fire apparatus parked in the collapse zone is a driver-training problem, not a seatbelt problem. Second, if the time it takes the driver to fasten a seatbelt makes the difference in getting out of the way of a collapsing building, the risk taken to move the apparatus is too great to even consider. I timed seven personnel from the time they sat in the driver seat of a ladder truck until I heard the seatbelt latch click. Three of the seven are not tenured enough to drive and may never have sat in the driver's seat before. On average, it took 4.3 seconds to fasten the seatbelt, with one who regularly drives completing the task in 2.9 seconds.

There also will be opposition based on cost. Mokhbery estimates the sensor system can be designed for $30,000; how much the system will increase the price of the typical fire apparatus is not known. But in the end, what value do you affix to a firefighter's life? Enclosed cabs and SCBA are expensive, too, but the fire service has managed to absorb these costs in the name of firefighter safety. If we argue that we can't afford a critical safety system on fire apparatus, are we any different than the home builders who argue that residential sprinkler systems are too expensive?

The simple act of fastening a seatbelt can cut in half the number of LODDs due to vehicle crashes. But try as we might, fire service leaders have had little success in reducing these needless deaths. The number of firefighters killed in apparatus crashes is relatively unchanged over the past 30 years. The technology to end this miserable record exists and it is past time to use it. The fire service must join with apparatus engineers to develop a system that requires seatbelts be worn, rather than one that merely makes a suggestion.

Trey Mayo is a 17-year veteran of the fire service, having served in volunteer, combination and career departments. He is currently the deputy fire chief in Carrboro, N.C. Mayo holds an associate's degree in fire protection technology, a bachelor's degree in industrial relations, and a master's degree in public administration. He is a 2007 graduate of the Executive Fire Officer Program at the National Fire Academy.