EMS Union Wary as FDNY Starts DriveCam Pilot Program

Everybody wants to reduce the number of accidents involving emergency vehicles. But doing so can be challenging, even controversial. Even with so-called “black box” systems that can visually record accidents and other driving events, it’s often not simply a matter of slapping them into ambulances. For an example of the practical, political and personnel considerations such steps can bring, consider the current experience of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY).

Like any agency, FDNY wants to minimize its vehicles’ involvement in accidents. To that end, it recently installed DriveCam units on a handful of fire and EMS vehicles, including two ambulances, as part of a pilot program. DriveCam, according to its manufacturer, “provides a comprehensive method to monitor, track and improve driving performance” by way of video technology and software that record accidents and help identify risky driving habits.

Basically, a small mounted video recorder captures what drivers experience on the road in front of them, preserving accidents and situations where drivers exceed certain parameters—things like speed, turning and braking forces, etc. For FDNY, “The purpose is to assist in accident investigations,” department spokesman Frank Gribbon told Newsday. “We believe it will reduce accidents.”

Evidence suggests that when applied across vehicle fleets, it does. In case studies cited by DriveCam, a San Diego shuttle service saw a 47% reduction in collisions in its first year using DriveCams; a cable company reduced preventable collisions by 41% in two years; and a limo provider reduced collisions by 62%. These testimonials and more are available at www.drivecam.com.

But the story doesn’t end there. The unions representing FDNY’s EMS providers and officers have concerns about exactly how and why such monitors might be used.

“One of the things we’ve heard, for instance, is that there will be an audio component to it,” says Robert Ungar, general counsel for the Uniformed EMTs and Paramedics of FDNY, which represents the department’s EMS providers. “If that’s the case, we may have some issues about privacy. Our guys basically spend their entire tours in the ambulance. They talk about lots of things, some of which may be personal—family, kids, medical issues. If all that’s recorded, how will that information be used?

“Another concern is, will this be used to take the city off the hook? Is the city going to be looking at accidents for a way to say, ‘It wasn’t us, it was the medic, so we’re not liable’? Is it going to be used as a disciplinary tool? Because the fact is that when you have emergency vehicles responding in emergency mode, in a city with the population density and narrow streets and other things we have in New York, there are going to be a certain number of accidents. We think the EMS Bureau has a pretty good batting average when it comes to accidents overall.”

Exactly how FDNY’s units might be used will be hashed out when labor and management sit down to work out the details; at the time of this writing, that had not yet happened. Meanwhile, DriveCam emphasizes the protective aspect of its product.

“What they’re going to find,” says DriveCam CEO Bruce Moeller, “is that unless you’re doing something nefariously, openly wrong, like drinking and driving, and trying to hide it, DriveCam is something that exonerates and protects you. You come to understand what trips the trigger—swerving, hitting the brake too hard—and if you learn not to do those things, your privacy never gets invaded. You control your own destiny.”

DriveCam’s record suggests it can reduce accidents, but before it can do that, as the New York experience suggests, providers and their bosses face the more difficult challenge of agreeing how to use it in a way that best protects everyone’s interests.

—JE