Driving to incidents

[Monkey nuts]

Hi all.

Our brigade does not let Crew Commanders drive to incidents as they say it does not fall within their role map. 

I was just wondering if this is the position of all brigades or do some allow their Crew commanders to drive on blue lights?

Thanks in anticipation.

[fireftrm]

The driving unit is not in the role map of Crew Manager, however that does not stop a service adding FF9 should they require it and then making alteratiosn to their maintenance of competence and other arrangements to deal with this. The only places where this may be happening are with RDS staff, where there is often a shortage of qualified drivers and the CMs are often so licenced, having served longer and been trained whilst Ffs. Thsi should definitely be seen as a short term 'extingency' measure whilst sufficient Ffs are trained. We still have CM driver staff (though they cannot operate as OiC and driver and if the crew has 'driver is OiC' then it is off the run, or must proceed under normal driving conditions) though are in the process of training more Ffs so avoid this position. Once we have completed training all managers will be removed from driving roles and we will then not pay for licences renewals eihter. We removed all RDS WMs from the driving role some time ago and are now working on CMs.

[Harry Hill]

I'm on a station with an ALP and we only have four of us who can drive it, one of which is one of our CM's.
Surely it's a competency issue isn't it? In order to keep the LGV/EFAD ticket. Obviously he wouldn't drive if there wasn't any other JO's on duty, but if both CM's and the WM are on duty it can't matter surely?

[Chunty]

At the airport we don't have a strict policy but our crewing formation plans should account for any need for an officer (manager) to need to drive. Meanwhile at my RDS station its still the case that on occasion even the S/M goes down the road in the driving seat despite the attempt to apply a policy some time ago to prevent W/M's upwards from doing so because it would have taken pumps off the run consistently which in itself is indicative of our brigade's poor record in processing driver training, in my opinion.

[Cut Fire Service Pay]

Its a Firemans job not an Lff. Never mind all of the competencey rubbish, if you want to dive hand in your bars!

[Nearlybaldandgrey]

Its a Firemans job not an Lff. Never mind all of the competencey rubbish, if you want to dive hand in your bars!

You're so full of positive comments!

The issue of crew managers driving will depend on the Service and the requirements to keep appliances on the run. Wholetime Crew Managers don't drive appliances but do crew the ALP.

Retained Crew Managers can drive but only when them not means the appliance doesn't turn out.

[Hightower]

A long time ago I was OIC and driver of a pump going to an incident - I never got to the destination due to a bad crash on the way.

Part of the persuing investigation  attributed some of the cause of the crash to the duplicity of my roles (being a man I couldn't think of 2 things at once).

Since that event my brigade has not allowed OIC / driver by the same person and IMHO quite rightly so.