Report Number: 05-0000175
Report Date: 05/27/2005

Event Description

We were dispatched as the second engine for an odor of smoke in a house. Our travel route was a 3 lane state road controlled by traffic lights at secondary roads. The traffic lights were flashing yellow as far as we could see all the way up the road. Cross traffic had flashing red traffic lights. We had our emergency lights on, but were not sounding our sirens or horn due to the time of day and lack of traffic on the road. As we approached the intersection at (street name deleted), a car came into view from the west side of the intersection, moving at a high rate of speed. I called to my driver to ensure he saw the car and he looked right instead of left. The approaching car did not stop at the flashing red light. By the time my driver turned his head to the left, both vehicles were entering the intersection. My driver braked hard and turned sharp left to avoid colliding with the car. None of the teenagers in the car ever looked our way. I counted 5 heads in the car and all heads were looking forward in their direction of travel throughout the entire incident. They continued on at the same rate of speed, never slowing. My driver slowed the engine for a period, then continued on the call. The call turned out to be nothing.

Lesson Learned

Situational Awareness: There were several lessons learned from this incident. First, we can't take anything for granted. We had not seen another vehicle on the road during the response until the car at the intersection, a travel distance of approximately one mile. As we moved farther up the road and away from the station, seeing no other vehicles, we picked up speed, slowing less and less at each intersection. By the time we reached the intersection where we almost collided with the car, my driver was barely taking his foot of the accelerator. Communication and Teamwork: When I called to my driver, I should have been more explicit in my statement. If I had said, "Car left" or "Look left" or something like that he may have looked immediately to the left. We talked about that afterward. Decision Making: Not using the sirens and horn was not a good thing. The car had its windows open, so maybe they would have reacted to the noise. Their view of the intersection was blocked by a 7 story building. I'm pretty confident they didn't even see us since no one ever looked our way.

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