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Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill
(www.oregonlive.com)
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this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024
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Fuck Cars
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My intention is definitely "fuck cars." The fucked-up thing here is that even ambulance drivers, who should know better more so than almost anybody, are incompetently right-hooking cyclists. Billing him for it is merely the icing on the shit-cake.
A lot of EMTs work 24-hour shifts, and 48-hour shifts are not uncommon. The thought that the ambulance driver on the road next to me might be at hour 46 is... frequently worrying.
The problem isn't the EMTs being incompetent, the problem is with the industry standards and the employers.
That again sounds more like a shithole country problem tan a car problem.
Exactly this. They transported someone, they filled out a PCR for billing to send to insurance and the patient.
I was forced to work a few 24+ hour shifts in healthcare and working on zero sleep fucked me up. It gave me migraines, vomiting, insomnia, manic depression and I felt like I was going to have a heart attack.
It is beyond cruel and inhumane that employers can force people to work without sleep. It is so fucked that not allowing someone to sleep is considered a form of torture by the Geneva convention.
My former roommate is an EMT and he spent 90% of his 48 hour shifts sleeping and playing video games.
So your alternative would be that ambulances should no longer use cars? From my perspective all kind of emergency services such as fire department, law enforcement, ambulances should be the very last cars we get rid of as a society. They have to be fast and they need to transport a lot of stuff and people.
The rest of the world does without GIANT and dangerous emergency vehicles for one. They still put out fires and transport sick people. How american fire departments are getting people killed (video from "not just bikes")
The rest of the world often also builds better infrastructure, like a protected bike lane, to signifcantly reduce the conflicts between cars and not cars.
A bike lane would've helped. If there wasn't one, I can see a good reason for whatever the fuck really happened here.
If there had been a bike lane, he could/would have stayed there behind the stopping line acknowledging the right of the ambulance to go first, but without one...I can see someone in panic trying to get out of the way and then getting run over regardless of where he was positioned.
Youre ignoring the bike lanes are separate from the car lanes, which protects cyclists. But in the US the firedept doesn't like that. Lanes need to be so wide and space so clear that the bikes have no space
I'm not sure I get what you're saying, or what I'm missing.
I'm talking about the most basic kind of bike lane, which by all means is just a line on the tarmac. It does however ensure that the bike has a place to be, and that the bike will be visible to the cars, because the bike lane's stopping line is further ahead than that of the cars. I also don't know the exact situation from the article, but if the bike had been at the stopping line in this bike lane, it would never conflict with a right turning ambulance.
Why bother doing all that, saying you dont understand when you could have just watched the video lmao.
Get out sometime, see what things look like in the world instead of drawing images in your own little view.
I still don't have any clue about what part of my comment you object against, or why you're so fucking negative about it.
All I'm saying is that the right turn accident was completely preventable by making a simple painted line on the tarmac, as it is done in many places where there isn't room for the kind of huge separated bike lanes as shown in your photo.
Fun fact, many if not most of those ambulances are made in Canada, and not the USA.
Fun fact: Where they are made doesn't dictate what specs they should have.
Absolutely true, it was mostly just a response to the "rest of the world" part of the grandparent's comment.
Any vehicle large enough to carry the necessary equipment and people for emergency services is going to be dangerous to pedestrians. Not sure what you’re trying to prove here.
In These Votes: People who failed elementary physics.
No, you're missing the point. It's not about the emergency vehicle itself hitting pedestrians. It's about the fact that having a very large vehicle, such as a ladder firetruck, as the "design vehicle" for the street forces engineers to design in a larger intersection turning radius, which increases regular cars' speed through the intersection. That is what decreases pedestrian safety.
See also: https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/design-controls/design-vehicle/
That’s a much better, clearer way of stating the point. Thank you.
Tell me youve never been in another country without telling me youve never been in another country.
Ambulances and firetrucks in Europe and Asia are smaller than most american pickup trucks.
I agree that the US have way too many way too big trucks but this...
... is just wrong. I live in Germany and even small villages with only volunteer firefighters have full blown trucks way above 10 tons.
Most fire departments have something like this:
MAN TGM 18.330 Tank with 4,000 litres of water 18 tons total weight
More specialized departments close to industrial facilities, airports can be also much bigger. This one is currently the biggest weighting 52 tons.
Here in 'Murrica, they send something like in the second photo when grandma falls in the bathroom.
Yes, I'm exaggerating, but not by much. The truck in the first photo is smaller than the trucks my city fire department has. There's a retirement community not far from where I live, and they send a ladder truck for medical emergencies there several times a week. I'm not really sure what use 4,000 liters of water would be when somebody is having a stroke.
They send a firetruck if someone is having a stroke? Isn't there a dedicated ambulance for such cases? A ladder truck might make sense to get patients out of a big building but other than that that? Or do they have just one single vehicle that they use for all purposes?
Watch the Not Just Bikes video, if you have the time and interest. The short answer is: yes. The trucks are enormous because they carry all the equipment for any sort of emergency, so they send the big trucks to every call. Not every fire station has an ambulance unit, so the trucks can get to many locations more quickly.
It's ridiculous.
Okay, but look how short that is compared to the American equivalent:
Okay, but look how short that is compared to the American equivalent:
The longer the truck is, the larger the turning radius it needs at intersections. The larger the intersections are, the faster regular cars drive through them. The faster the cars drive, the less safe it is for everybody else.
Deciding how large a vehicle a street should accommodate is called choosing the design vehicle. You pick that, and then the whole street is designed around it.
Guess what: here in the US, we often send even trucks like the second one I pictured -- the one that's even longer than your "industrial facility and airport truck" -- to residential neighborhoods. Fire departments want to own trucks like that and we just fuckin' let them. And that's why our neighborhood streets are too often designed like goddamned airport runways!
Edit: Oh, and by the way...
The MAN TGM 18.330 you cited has a wheelbase of 3,900/4,200/4,500 mm (source).
A Ford F-150 Super Crew with an 8' bed and an F-250/F-350 Crew Cab with an 8' bed, both of which are considered pretty typical American pickup trucks, have wheel bases of 163.7" (4158mm) and 176.0" (4470mm) respectively (source).
He's playing a little fast and loose with the notion of "most," but otherwise, no, he's actually not wrong!
Weight doesn't matter in this context? US firetrucks are almost a meter wider than german ones. A german firetruck is only about half a meter wider than a Ford F450.
And also firetrucks in US are first responders, they go before ambulances for most emergencies.
Unless they have some sort of advanced materials science in other countries we don’t know about here in the US that makes them as light as cardboard, I’d bet my year’s salary you wouldn’t volunteer to let one hit you.
And yes, I have been out of the US. Shall I tell you what we say about those who “assume” things over here?
Clearly you didnt watch the video, because you couldn't be more wrong. This is uniquely a north american thing
lol, right, pedestrians getting injured/killed by cars is uniquely North American. OK buddy.
North america is the only place where the trucks are this wide, and where the firedept has the power to regulate the size of infrastructure (and where bike lanes can be) for their increasingly large trucks.
But don't watch the video or anything, keep arguing your ignorance.
Your comment said uniquely north american. I even edited my comment to say North American to match your language since I initially did say US.
When I came into this thread, you may have noticed I was replying to you and your assertion that pedestrians outside North America don’t get injured by heavy metal objects. I don’t care how compact your vehicles may be, a hunk of solid metal in motion is going to injure a squishy human being.
Other countries have separate lanes for bikes, less open space for cars and parking (fire dept in the US regulates the minimum space needed for their large trucks).
Guess what, when the bike isnt on the same road as the hunk of metal, they don't get hit. Weird i know. Dont watch the video though!!
(Canada has similar shitty emergency vehicle rules, it's a north american thing)
None of which is anything I’m disagreeing with or have mentioned. Again, your comment I originally replied to was implying because you don’t have giant vehicles people don’t get injured by vehicles. I don’t need to watch the video because I was replying to you and the nonsense implication of your statement.
" i dont need your full argument".
Okkkay
Think it’s pretty clear who has the reading comprehension issue. Done engaging with the troll.
Could you show me those small and safe emergency vehicles that are used outside the USA? Because I'm outside the USA, I literally live near a firefighter station, and they're all probably as big as US vehicles.
Key word: "probably." Which means you don't actually know.
Chances are, you're mistaken. But hey, post a pic and we'll compare. I'm betting it'll end up like this, though.
Literally the video i shared explains everything down to the metrics? Why are you sealioning on the specific post that has your answer?
And also because someone else discussed german firetrucks I know the sizes. German fire trucks are almost a full meter less wide than US ones. A german firetruck is only half a meter wider than a ford f450
The video is half an hour long and I really don't feel like watching it all to find out something that could be said in one or two paragraphs of text, so I ignored it at first. As I expected, the video deals with a bunch of more or less relevant topics that you or OP didn't mention at all. It actually is a bit interesting, I've watched a part of it, and I do have to admit that US fire trucks are bigger than those where I live. The problem is that their deadliness is a consequence of several other factors, and only indirectly of their size. What you and OP decided not to do is to communicate that point with any nuance, and all that I could read from your comments is that, by some logic, getting hit by a 10-metre truck is much safer than getting hit by a 15-metre truck. OP complained about the driver "right-hooking" the cyclist, you just said the trucks are too big, do I really have to watch a half an hour video to understand why your comments don't sound nonsensical?
I appreciate you digging in and trying to get what I was saying. Bit of a nightmare here to keep up with which arguments ive made in the thread above the reply, as people ask the same things over and over.
I did say that firetrucks have a huge say in what kind of infrastructure can be built, and how big it's allowed to be. Segregated bikes lanes for example are mostly forbidden by firedepts who can't reach them with their massive trucks. There are no right hooks on segregated bike lanes.
I get your point though, apologies!
Ahhh okay, but you’re not trying to argue that paramedics should be on bicycles or taking public transit! That was the thing that puzzled me.
I think we could avoid a lot of the issues with pedestrians and cyclists getting hit by motor vehicles by getting rid of stroads and properly designing cities to separate streets and roads.