Gadgets for First Responders? Helpful and Harmful
Global positioning systems and other computerized aids can shave life-saving minutes off an ambulance trip, but use of the same gadgets can also be responsible for loss of lives.

April 08, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Gadgets for First Responders? Helpful and Harmful

The availability of global positioning systems and other computerized navigation aids can shave life-saving minutes off an ambulance trip. But use of the same gadgets that help first responders save lives is sometimes responsible for loss of lives. While systems like GPS are used by ordinary drivers as well as first responders, the risk of their use with emergency vehicles is heightened due to the high speeds at which such vehicles frequently travel. A few seconds of diversion have a greater probability of deadly consequences when speeds are high and braking distances increased.

Experts routinely remind drivers not to take their eyes off the road, and this is even more important for drivers of emergency vehicles travelling at high speeds. Even a momentary glance at a tech device can have tremendous consequences.

For example, a sheriff's deputy in St. Clair County, Ill., wasn't even speeding when he received dispatch instructions and entered the address into his cruiser's computerized mapping system in June 2007. That momentary distraction caused the cruiser to crash into another vehicle, causing serious injury to the driver.

In April 2008, when an ambulance driver in West Nyack, NY diverted his eyes momentarily to glance at a GPS, it was his partner who was left paralyzed. More recently, a New York paramedic nearly struck a pedestrian with his speeding ambulance when he tried to drive and enter information into his onboard computer simultaneously.

Multiple studies have shown the dangers of distracted driving. Distracted driving is not only responsible for 80 percent of all vehicle crashes; it's more dangerous than drunk driving. As evidence mounts concerning the dangers of distracted driving, using onboard devices to facilitate emergency runs and driving safely may be deemed incompatible.

Current rules in some jurisdictions preclude emergency drivers from using tech devices in traffic, but in practice those rules are likely to be ignored in times of crisis. Sometimes ambulance drivers' partners are attending to patients and unavailable to key in data in lieu of the driver.

Even more troublesome, though, if the fact that not all gadgets in emergency vehicles are used for life-saving purposes. Police officers routinely type in license plate numbers in non-emergency situations, for example. As spokesman Shawn Chase for the California Highway Patrol told Firehouse.com, "There's no way you could do this without eventually running into something."

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