Huntsville firefighters are reminding drivers about the steps to take when they see a vehicle approaching with flashing green lights.
Paul Calleja, deputy fire chief at Huntsville/Lake of Bays Fire Department, says the flashing green light indicates a volunteer firefighter is responding to their station because they’ve been called to an emergency.
“I think it really comes down to an education piece where we may have new residents to the area that have never lived in an area that has a volunteer fire department,” says Calleja. “This can be a little foreign to them, and because of that, they don’t necessarily merge to the side of the road to allow that person to pass.”
Calleja says there is no law in place to pull over for volunteer firefighters on their way to an emergency, but it all comes down to a matter of courtesy.
“It is in the best interest of the community that you do merge over and allow them to pass,” he adds.
He says managing response times when there is an emergency is one of biggest challenge for volunteer firefighters.
“If we get people that don’t merge over and allow volunteers to pass, it just increases the response time because they have to get to the fire station to get their equipment to be able to respond to an emergency,” adds Calleja.
He says longer response times could be life-threatening in an emergency case.
“The first safe spot to do that they can merge over to the side of the road. Just allow the vehicle to pass, and then they can proceed as normal,” says Calleja.
