Rant Ambulance drivers

[00dave]

This could be a delicate topic as admitedly they do a vital job but hear me out.

I applied to be an ambulance driver/technician, the description was something like working with a paramedic but mostly in charge of the vehicle. Well apparantly not long after my application they scrapped the driver/technician position so now only paramedics operate ambulances, probably a government measure to meet targets or something.

Anyway since last year I've noticed a severe drop in the driving ability of some of these lifesaving muppets. I'm not talking about when they've got blues and twos on that doesn't count really unless they turn them off at some point for no reason and go back to being muppets. I saw one last month with the blues and twos on scream past a row of traffic travelling at about 50mph only to get to the front, pull in switch everything off and drop down to 30mph, surely whatever happened to the patient, died/got better/leg fell off they still need to get to where ever they were heading just as quick, and with all the lights and sirens flashing.
Not long ago I saw one take the front wing off a ford focus as they were parking up to get chips.
Saw another drive past a frantically waving copper who was trying to flag them down after some poor girl got clobbered in a fight.
Then today an idiot decided he was going to block the exit to a car park in a dental centre in Lincoln. There was plenty of room in the actual car park itself literally a couple of steps further from the main doors. But he decided to park up in the exit road, no lights or activity in or around it either and people were having to use the entrance to get out which caused chaos.
And is it me or do you always see them parked up in cul de sacs for hours on end reading papers or eating chips?

 

[Tom]

I saw one last month with the blues and twos on scream past a row of traffic travelling at about 50mph only to get to the front, pull in switch everything off and drop down to 30mph, surely whatever happened to the patient, died/got better/leg fell off they still need to get to where ever they were heading just as quick, and with all the lights and sirens flashing.

Or perhaps the shout they were heading to was cancelled, or another ambulance got there first.

Saw another drive past a frantically waving copper who was trying to flag them down after some poor girl got clobbered in a fight.

Maybe they were heading to something more important.

Then today an idiot decided he was going to block the exit to a car park in a dental centre in Lincoln. There was plenty of room in the actual car park itself literally a couple of steps further from the main doors. But he decided to park up in the exit road, no lights or activity in or around it either and people were having to use the entrance to get out which caused chaos.

Maybe you'd rather the driver spent another minute parking the vehicle perfectly, meanwhile the person who isn't breathing won't mind waiting.

And is it me or do you always see them parked up in cul de sacs for hours on end reading papers or eating chips?

Must be you. Or maybe improving coverage and reducing response times is a bad idea...

 

[00dave]

lol out comes the high horse, you always get annoyed with driving related threads don't you.

Or perhaps the shout they were heading to was cancelled, or another ambulance got there first.

Perhaps but he did pull into the hospital so I doubt he was on the way to a shout.

Maybe they were heading to something more important.

Can't have been that important, no lights on.

Maybe you'd rather the driver spent another minute parking the vehicle perfectly, meanwhile the person who isn't breathing won't mind waiting.

It was a big open car park, I think he spent more time parking up to block the exit than he would have just stopping by the door.

Must be you. Or maybe improving coverage and reducing response times is a bad idea...

Just down the road from the ambulance station but nicely out of sight doesn't really improve coverage.


I suppose I'm blaming the wrong people really, they did away with the dedicated driver and left the paramedics to do it all and dont seem to have trained them to drive the vehicle properly. When I was in the airforce we spent weeks learning how to drive the battlefield ambulance as fast but as safely as possible, the damn things are top heavy you see so you need to be trained otherwise you're asking for trouble.

 

[mooSe_]

My cousin is a paramedic and he had to go on an ambulance driving course

 

[Mabs]

as far as i know, the london ambulances have areas they cover and they park up randomly around them in a loop or whatever while on shift, in an effort to be closer to where they are needed


otherwise, yes, a lot of them do seem to be bus drivers, but as was pointed out, if you dont know the details, you cant really judge

 

[mycenae]

Paramedics do have to go on a driving course....but EMT's don't...well, not at the mo anyway. I suggest you read this blog
Random Acts Of Reality :: Main Page
might change your opinions somewhat.

 

[`mongoose]

Paramedics do have to go on a driving course....but EMT's don't...well, not at the mo anyway. I suggest you read this blog
Random Acts Of Reality :: Main Page
might change your opinions somewhat.

That's a great blog.

Thanks

M

 

[Tom]

lol out comes the high horse, you always get annoyed with driving related threads don't you.

...except I'm not the one on the high horse - that would be you, by judging the actions of people with so little information. I'm just pointing out alternative explanations for their behaviour.

Perhaps but he did pull into the hospital so I doubt he was on the way to a shout.

Yes because ambulances only ever respond to calls from a particular direction...

Can't have been that important, no lights on.

Lights and sirens are not always necessary and are not always an indicator of the seriousness of any calls. For all you know they may have been busy with someone in the back, but no, you just see one driving past a waving officer and presume they were too...lazy? to respond.

It was a big open car park, I think he spent more time parking up to block the exit than he would have just stopping by the door.

Utter rubbish.

Just down the road from the ambulance station but nicely out of sight doesn't really improve coverage.

Presumably then, when you saw this happening you went to the ambulance station and asked what they were doing? Or did you just see someone having their lunch and presume they were slacking off? You did actually check to see if they weren't waiting on someone in a nearby house, did you?

People used to say the same things about police eating out in public - so the forces stipulated that the police could only eat on police premises, which was great except now the police weren't as integral a part of the community as they once were. Which is why subsequently the police were once again allowed to eat in the community.


Really, your rant is based on ignorance. Don't be surprised when somebody points out the alternatives.

 

[Trem]

I'm sorry but I can't say 1 bad thing about ambulance lads and lasses.

One saved my sons life when he was born (at home, yeah great idea thanks for that local GP) and not breathing, and the others were absolute diamonds with my dad, treated him as though he was the only person ill in the world.

I couldn't give a flying fuck if they had wrote off 70 Ford Focus's on the way to my son.

So what if they sit eating chips, they earn their pay a hell of a lot more than most who work for the country.

 

[00dave]

Seriously unless I explain to you the exact conditions of the situation you're always going to pick fault with what I say aren't you. My rant is based on a series of observations over recent months as my job involves driving to and from hospitals so I regularly encounter them.

 

[Tom]

Seriously unless I explain to you the exact conditions of the situation you're always going to pick fault with what I say aren't you.

Such irony, especially as you don't know the exact conditions.

 

[Trem]

Seriously unless I explain to you the exact conditions of the situation you're always going to pick fault with what I say aren't you. My rant is based on a series of observations over recent months as my job involves driving to and from hospitals so I regularly encounter them.

I can only comment on what I saw, I aren't having a go at your thoughts either, they are just as valid.

Its a bad subject for a forum though, its never going to be a calm debate and could end badly.

Ambulance drivers always seem the most decent of emergency services, fireman play pool and watch porn all day, police bitch slap people until they die etc

 

[Ch3tan]

dave, Tom is playing devils advocate and rightly so. You do not know all the details, and from he way you wrote your post it just seems you are bitter that you are not driving the ambulance.

 

[rynnor]

fireman play pool and watch porn all day,

The Mrs and eldest (in a buggy) were nearly hit by a fire engine running a red light a few years back and before someone says they might have been on an urgent call she saw them turn into the supermarket carpark a hundred yards further up where we later found they were scheduled to be doing a fire safety demo - oh the irony!!!

Firemen/Ambulance drivers are just professional drivers - neither saints nor devils - they make mistakes like everybody else - if 00dave thinks they have gotten worse in his area he could be right.

 

[Edmond]

fireman play pool and watch porn all day

I wanna become a Fireman, but without the flames.....oh, and pool

 

[Fuggz]

I dunno. Lost my mother fairly recently and called the doc. Big mistake. Couldn't do sod all without equipment - lung cancer. Ambulance guys arrived and took over. Very professional and very caring. Would be better if they were top notch drivers but I really couldn't give a damn. My mum couldn't breathe full stop. They helped her too. Sorry to be such a topic spoil sport but tis life. Probably put a block on further discussions on this very topic - I seem to have the nack (spelt right?). Don't give a fuck to be honest. Likes to speak my mind however nasty the subject matter.

 

[Bugz]

I agree with Tom.

The ambulances around where I live are fuckin' unbelievably well managed. The driving is pretty top notch. Saw an ambulance weave in and out of the traffic on a busy high street at quite high speeds and as soon as he was out, just ploughed it down the rest of the road.

The most beautiful thing about ambulances is the way people just pull over to the sides. I've never seen a person not do so to date. It's a beautiful feeling when humanity recognises the need to help others.

If you feel like this too. never read Ambulances by Phillip Larkin - it'll ruin it!

 

[Dr_Weasel]

I saw someone not pull over to the side once in the most horrific display of muppetry whilst driving ever.

It was late at night and I was on the M4 and taking the M32 exit. For those not familiar with the area the M4 slip road drops down to a roundabout at the top of the M32. As I approached the roundabout I could hear a siren so I waited on the slip road to ensure I wasnt going to get in its way.

As I waited at the slip road I could see the blue lights of an ambulance coming around the roundabout. The only other vehicle on the road that night was some young girl in a small Clio type car coming around the roundabout on the fast lane in front of the ambulance.

The ambulance came up right up behind her at which point she slammed on her brakes and came to a dead stop. Yup. She stopped in the fast lane of the motor way with the ambulance jammed up behind her. The road was otherwise deserted....

Im amazed that the ambulance didnt hit the back of her, but utterly bemused as to what this girl thought she was going to achieve by stopping in the fast lane of an otherwise empty motorway.....

In the end the ambulance had to manoeuvre around the stationary car.

 

[Dukat]

Firemen/Ambulance drivers are just professional drivers - neither saints nor devils - they make mistakes like everybody else - if 00dave thinks they have gotten worse in his area he could be right.

Shit, this sentence rates wayyy to highly on my "makes-sense-o-meter", are you sure you're posting on the right forum Rynnor?

I would be very, very hesitant to critisize ambulance drivers because of the nature of the job they do. That said, I don't think they should be completely above critisism - not that anyone here is suggesting that.

 

[Mabs]

I saw someone not pull over to the side once in the most horrific display of muppetry whilst driving ever.

It was late at night and I was on the M4 and taking the M32 exit. For those not familiar with the area the M4 slip road drops down to a roundabout at the top of the M32. As I approached the roundabout I could hear a siren so I waited on the slip road to ensure I wasnt going to get in its way.

As I waited at the slip road I could see the blue lights of an ambulance coming around the roundabout. The only other vehicle on the road that night was some young girl in a small Clio type car coming around the roundabout on the fast lane in front of the ambulance.

The ambulance came up right up behind her at which point she slammed on her brakes and came to a dead stop. Yup. She stopped in the fast lane of the motor way with the ambulance jammed up behind her. The road was otherwise deserted....

Im amazed that the ambulance didnt hit the back of her, but utterly bemused as to what this girl thought she was going to achieve by stopping in the fast lane of an otherwise empty motorway.....

In the end the ambulance had to manoeuvre around the stationary car.

love it. saw something similair once
A road that connects the A303 to the taunton motorway junction, very busy road. roundabout. bollards, usual...
solid lane of traffic going one way.. all watching a full on -fire engine- stuck behind a little old lady in a heap of shit car it was almost in here boot, with lights and sirens going, and she didnt even know it was there...

 

[MYstIC G]

Then today an idiot decided he was going to block the exit to a car park in a dental centre in Lincoln. There was plenty of room in the actual car park itself literally a couple of steps further from the main doors. But he decided to park up in the exit road, no lights or activity in or around it either and people were having to use the entrance to get out which caused chaos.

They don't have to, like most people nowadays, patience doesn't exist. Someone might be dying = "Fucking **** parked an ambulance in my way but I'm KING OF THE WORLD!!!!"

 

[00dave]

from he way you wrote your post it just seems you are bitter that you are not driving the ambulance.

They did offer me a job but I was warned about the restructuring of the system. I was also gunning for the police at the time and had just started my current job.
EMAS has apparantly been in trouble recently for sending out 1 man ambulance teams to reduce call out targets. After EMAS was reconfigured in 2006 to include the Lincolnshire and south of the humber yorkshire the large rural areas of Lincolnshire weren't taken into account when funding was dished out, so response times started to slip, creating problems. So in a way I'm probably right, but it's not the fault of the ambulance teams so my attack on them is unjustified. It's the stupid target driven govenment's fault.
Lincs police are in a similar situation, funding is the same as other countys despite the larger coverage required.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Wow, some unbelievably unintelligent drivel posted here.

One of my friends' father is an ambulance driver and has been for most of his life. If you said that stuff to him he would open you up a series of new arseholes all over your ignorant, bullshit-stinking body.

 

[Chilly]

Wow, some unbelievably unintelligent drivel posted here.

One of my friends' father is an ambulance driver and has been for most of his life. If you said that stuff to him he would open you up a series of new arseholes all over your ignorant, bullshit-stinking body.

Film it, youtube it and watch the world be entertained!