DRIVE TO SURVIVE Part 3: AN EXCLUSIVE SUPPLEMENT Sponsored by: WHEELED COACH

Few areas of EMS are more important than vehicle safety. Many of you spend hours every day behind the wheel or in the back of a rig, treating and transporting, making your communities safer and better places to live. Your safety in that ambulance is a top concern for all of us. For vehicle designers and manufacturers, this means incorporating the latest and best features designed to protect their occupants. And for EMS providers, that means operating these vehicles with the proper training, equipment and attitude. In this special three-part supplement, we examine this equation in more depth. In Part 1, we looked at how agencies can create a "culture of vehicle safety." Part 2 reviewed what's new in terms of safety features in the back of the ambulance. This month, we consider the topic of driver training.

Previous installments of this special three-part supplement series covered important ground in the area of ambulance safety. The first examined the necessity of creating and maintaining an organizational "culture of safety" that breeds safe driving practices among every provider who ventures onto the road. The second described current efforts and ideas surrounding safety in the back of the rig, and looked briefly at what might be coming in the future.

     As we've noted, though, restraints, air bags and padding can only accomplish so much. Perhaps the biggest factor that determines your safety on the road is the person behind the wheel. And no matter how much their organization might value and preach safety, that person needs certain knowledge and tools and resources to help them achieve it every day.

     That's where driver training comes in. It is an inescapable part of the ambulance safety equation.

Training Today
     You probably know that both the quantity and the quality of driver training received by EMS providers in America varies greatly. Some receive extensive instruction spanning days; others get virtually nothing. The good news is that more EMS drivers today seem to be getting some level of instruction than at any time in the past.

     "We believe that today, there are more people in EMS and fire who get some type of emergency vehicle driver training than ever before," says Rick Patrick, director of EMS programs for Pennsylvania-based emergency-services insurer VFIS. "Depending on where you go, that can vary anywhere from an hour or two to a 40-hour program. The point is, there is more awareness now of the issues and characteristics surrounding the operation of emergency vehicles-of how ambulances and fire trucks are different in driving situations."

     Many EMS driver-training programs are based on EVOC. EVOC is the Emergency Vehicle Operators Course, a generalized framework used for the instruction of those who operate emergency vehicles. It's not the only method by which to teach EMS drivers, but it is part of NHTSA's National Standard Curriculum for EMS, and variations of it are in broad use in communities across the U.S.

     It's not the only option out there. Others get the National Safety Council's CEVO (Coaching the Emergency Vehicle Operator) course or one of any number of alternatives. They all cover many of the same things, and which one is best may boil down to things like individual instructors or personal preferences.

     "I'm familiar with about half a dozen emergency vehicle driver training core curriculums," says Patrick, whose company also provides training services. "For the most part, they say similar stuff. Obviously, they each have their own model of presenting information, but I don't know of any that contradicts any of the others."

     It is not possible, of course, to describe all the key elements a driver-training program should have in an article of reasonable length. But let's look at a few.

Naughty By Nature
     One of the most important things a driver-training program should instill is overcoming the aggression that comes naturally to responding to an emergency call. Flashing lights and wailing sirens can give providers a sense of invulnerability that is most definitely, dangerously false.