In a land where silence is gold, where the air-force only works during office hours , where it is forbidden to flush the toilet after 22h00 (i know, a myth), the things seem diferent with sirens: as long there's an emergency, the siren must be always on!
So it's short after 2:00am in a quiet sleeping city of Steinhausen. No cars, sometimes every 15min a taxi comes by delivering the last drunken teenage to his parents house. But even he and his almost empty Redbull can are quitet so nobody know how drunk he arrived home.
But not tonight, no! Apperently a barn outside of Cham just caught fire and there is a loud siren of a firetruck crossing Steinhausen waking everybody up! So after a couple of minutes you almost feel asleep again BAM! Another siren... and some 3 more. No, no traffic outside beside the firetrucks but noise must be made because blue-lights in the middle of the night isn't enough.
It's not the first time and I ask myself, is the siren really necessary if there's almost no traffic at all? When I was in Portugal, emergency vehicles always used blue-lights, but sirens were only used if there was traffic ahead, or before a road intersection, even during the day...
Don't get me wrong: I'm thankful the firemen fought the fire all night long. Nobody was injured btw.
TL;DR: Unnecessary sirens in the middle of a lovely quiet night.
According to traffic code the vehicles have only priority over other traffic when blue light AND sirens are on. It could be that the firetrucks have no option to run on blue light only.
Considering how many times the Cham firefighter had an emergency during the night http://www.fw-cham.ch/index.php?id=281 I suggest to move this to first world problem thread.
Second roegners statment. If you are in the US you have the impression either martial law is in force or the arsonist convention is in town.
Police and ambulances do this in my experience. Fire brigades might not have any "noise reduction" policy because they're not active very often, but I've certainly seen firetrucks with only lights and no sirens, especially the big and slow ones.
"It's not my house or family so solve the problem quietly" or what?
With the Fiat Brava I did not see the blue-lights of police etc. behind me. I think I made my car jump aside when they - apparently, according to audience - lost patience with me and put on their sirene
Who was the other one, who complained the police does not give him detailed information? You just animated him to start ranting again.
Beth Sinai Hospital just around the corner, NYC Police department some streets up and the fire brigade had fun with sirens, too! Those were LOUD. You could really feel safe around the clock ;-)
Made me homesick for the nightly tolling of church - and cowbells....
Not in my part of the States. I can’t recall even hearing one siren on our trip to Oklahoma last year. Think there might have been one in Dallas, but not even sure about that - we were only there for 4 nights in total.
We had a fire not far from us the other year and didn’t know anything about it until the OH got caught in the traffic problem early morning trying to go to work since the fire engines were blocking the road. No sirens heard at all. Guess it could be something to do with location - we’re in a small village and don’t get much traffic during the night.
Yes and I don't think that rule should be changed (blue light + siren = priority). My point with this post is more that is it necessary even without any traffic?
Article suggest that the siren should be turned on when approaching traffic, or an intersection or whenever priority is needed. Not while driving an empty road. It works well in other countries.
I admit it is a controversial theme and I may sound egoistic but I didn't mean to
Firefighteres are apart from bigger cities, on voluntary/militia base. Also fires are luckely rather rare and not the norm. Better let them (the firefighters) use light and horn all the times and not fiddle with a switch while rushing to the scene.
PS: The traditional prayer is: "Oh, Saint Florian, spare my house, light other ones."
I live on the main route for emergency vehicles, because there are no trams and buses on this road. At night, they use the blue lights only, unless there's traffic at the junction about 1k further down the road. I've never been woken by sirens, but see blue lights through the blinds every night.
As things stand emergency services must have both lights and siren on or they must (mostly) conform to traffic laws. Not that this can't be changed but there may well be consequences in the form of people killed.
As things stand, imagine a 30-ton firefighter truck with blue lights in full flare, waiting for a late drunken homecomer to cross the pedestrian strip. And waiting. And waiting...
Or the truck doing 30 because that's the max speed even though the road itself would allow 60-70-80km/h with sirens on.
I find it logical: lights - to alert everyone and people with auditory impairments visually, sound - to warn any blind person. We forget that there are people with one or more sensory disorders.
A blind intoxicated man crossing a road after a night out - plausible, especially in this part of the world.