Risk management of emergency service vehicle crashes in the United States fire service: process, outputs, and recommendations

Table 1 Profiles of fire departments participating in study, 2015

	Department A	Department B	Department C
Primary Geography	Urban	Suburban	Rural
Department Type	City, Career	County, Combination	District, Volunteer
Population Served, thousands	>1000	100–1000	<100
Area Size Served, sq. mi.	150–500	150–500	<150
Stations, n	>50	10–50	<10
Personnel Size, n	>1000	100–1000	<100
Fleet Size, n	>100	50–100	<50
Emergency Calls, n	>100,000	1000–100,000	<1000
Crash rates per
100 personnel	7.37	10.45	0
10,000 emergency calls	5.99	16.76	0
100,000 population served	13.93	13.28	0
Risk Management Team, n (%)	23 (100)	8 (100)	5 (100)
Chiefs/Captains/Officers	7 (30)	2 (25)	1 (20)
Firefighters/Drivers	13 (57)	3 (38)	2 (40)
Administrators, Fleet	3 (13)	3 (38)	2 (40)
Risk Management Team Description	Head of safety chief, crash review panel consisting of firefighters/drivers, union representatives, general counsel, fleet manager	Head of safety chief, volunteer firefighters, risk management department representatives.	Department chief, fleet manager, volunteer firefighters, station administrator.

Each department recruited a broad range of personnel to participate in the RM process, including Battalion Chiefs, captains, frontline drivers, fleet managers, and administrators. Department A predominantly involved firefighters and front-line drivers, as well as union representatives. Although Department B invited volunteer firefighters to participate, only career firefighters and members from their liability risk management division participated in the process. Department C included volunteer firefighters in the RM meetings

ISSN: 1471-2458