Blocker Program Launched to Safeguard Crews on Accident Sites
The Mobile Fire Rescue Service (MFRS) in Mobile, Alabama has initiated a Blocker program. This program is meant to safeguard the patients and crews on the site of a highway accident. With this program, MFRS hopes to reduce the nuisance of rubbernecking.
Accidents on highways typically involve high-speed collisions so that any victims are in dire need of immediate help. However, this is not possible when distracted driver rubbernecking at the scene of an accident end up crashing into other vehicles.
Such crashes are quite common, especially with a rise in the number of distracted drivers on Alabama roads. Drivers involved in these crashes make things harder for the authorities. Not only that, they also endanger the firefighters, paramedics and crash victims at the accident scene. Previously, vehicles with the fire service have been occasionally used to create a sort of perimeter around an accident site. This is done to block off the accident and the people involved at the scene from other drivers or vehicles. However, this doesn’t often prove very effective.
This is why MFRS has now launched a dedicated Blocker program. Under this program, MFRS will dispatch a dedicated ladder truck to block the site of a highway accident. This program will cover any crashes that take place on the I-65 and I-10 highways. According to Steven Millhouse of MFRS, the department can easily spare the truck to help at a crash site. He also says that these trucks are already available, so using them is not going to cost the department extra.
Road crash statistics from 2017 show that every 200 seconds, an accident is reported in Alabama. Rubbernecking often serves as a key distraction on highways and rubbernecking drivers at a crash site have frequently caused further crashes. With the Blocker program, MFRS hopes to mitigate this.
Source: https://www.fox10tv.com/news/mfrd-blocking-accident-scenes-to-increase-safety-possibly-cut-down/article_ac0676f8-2ab3-11ea-b8c0-cf43fc48ac37.html