Enjoying a quiet drink?

[kwakba]

I'm not at all convinced that this is proper use of firefighter resources. Surely their primary role is to deal with fires ie.. fighting and preventing.

However, i've never been convinced of the arguement that allows firefighters to sleep on the job. Since we are a 24 hour society, can they not
conduct checks with business on fire related issues?

But to get back to the point about educating drinkers about using the road. Shouldn't this be the remit of the local Casualty Reduction organisation?

A typical attitude I'm afraid. We as Ff's don't carry out inspections of business, that is dealt with by "Technical Fire Safety" and the law is so involved that if a Ff was to train on this law he/she wouldn't have time to train as a Ff. Who do you want turning up when your house is on fire, a truck full of trained Ff's or a truck full of inspectors?

Of course, we would be happy to carry out a Home Fire Safety Check at your house, 3am ok for you? Come on...

[kwakba]

I think this may be a good idea James.

I have noticed & experienced (no knock at you here, just a general observation) that the fire brigade seem keener and are more readily available to get involved in road safety issues than the police, which seems strange to me.

The Police are missing out on valuable public contact here, and are being seen more & more as just an enforcement agency rather than your local friendly bobby stuff (just my own opinion).

What is good about this story, is they seem to be approaching all road users, not just the motorist.

It does seem strange that road safety has been left to us to deal with, our schools education includes road safety, at Christmas we had a smashed up Astra VXR outside the station with a sign board suggesting slowing down.

We now take umm, toerags who have been joyriding but are too young for jail, and we put them in a smashed up car and cut them out - is enough to scare the crap out of them. We don't involve the Police because of the negative inpact this has on the whole event - in terms of the "youth"

[kwakba]

I suppose this ties in with a current Archers storyline where a character got hit on his way home from the pub (allbeit by a drunk driver).

On a similar theme, anyone else note the story where one brigade's engines are being fitted with 6 cameras to catch motorists use mobiles, bus lanes and other offences?

My understanding is that they are going to get rid of black boxes and use cameras to display what happens when we crash....

BUT and it's a massive BUT, some F&RS are going to use them for catching road offenders - a truly stupid thing as we will end up with the same poor public image that the Police have.

[kwakba]

You will probably find that they are also are talking about other fire prevention things in relation to drink.
For example a great number of housefires are the result of people going home "under the influence" and thinking, "I'll have something to eat" and on goes the chip pan or fryingpan/ grill/toaster etc to be forgotten about when they fall asleep.
Others still from drunken accidents with cigarettes falling from uncocious mouths and hands whilst falling asleep on the sofa or bed very often leading not just to injury, but loss of life.

Very true, weekend nights/early mornings and payday nights tend to be the busyiest time regarding house fires for the reasons Bill mentions.

[kwakba]

If it ain't on fire it must be a police responsibility.

I don't know figures, but how many fires do firemen attend as a percentage of all the calls they attend? I thought their job description was expanded a few years ago?

2003/04 2004/05

Primary Fires 337 262

Secondary Fires 962 577

Chimney Fires 16 8

False Alarm Good Intent 306 244

Automatic Fire Alarms 548 603

False Alarm Malicious 55 48

Road Traffic Collisions 141 149

Special Service Calls 216 194

Total 2581 2085

These are the stats for my station. just to give an idea. Sorry, can't tabulate this easily on this forum.