Post by Dave on Mar 9, 2010 20:26:26 GMT
I believe the police added around 5% or 6% to our council tax bills this year and while I’m not sure how much the fire brigade wanted, all you hear from them is cuts, cuts and even more cuts. They wanted a few years ago to stop night time cover at the Paignton fire station and yes they claimed it would not put anyone’s life in any greater danger. The fact that a fire engine would have had to come an extra six miles just to get to Paignton would not have made a difference? By the time the engine would have got to the fire they may have well turned back home again and send for an undertaker. Thankfully it was fought and it never happened.
Got to go off track here as writing the above I have suddenly remembered something, QUESTION, does the London fire brigade ever put out any car fires? I only ask as I have seen two in London and both times the cars were on the other side of the road well alight stuck in a large traffic jam. As I drove on a mile or so up the road on both occasions I have seen a fire engine with its lights flashing going nowhere stuck in the same jam. A picture always comes into my head when I think about those car fires is that when the fire engine gets there in the end, the fire went out ages before and so they never do ever put out any car fires.
It makes me mad when you can never find a policeman when you want one and when all I hear from the fire brigade is what they are going to be cutting next and today I ended up thinking that if they responded to an incident with just what was needed and not go well over the top, they would not have to look to make savings in the first place.
I left Holsworthy around 8.20am heading for Bideford via Stibb Cross and was not on the road too long before I was forced to stop as the van in front of me put on his hazard lights on the brow of a hill. So I got out of the van and looked down the hill and there were three cars in front of the van and an old blue Peugeot on its roof facing the same way as I had been travelling.
The car had been coming the other way and hit some black ice and hit the bank on the left hand side and then it flipped and flew through the air landing on the other side of the road. As it was an old Peugeot the windscreen was not laminated and as the car fell back onto the road it shattered everywhere.
A lady mini bus driver who had pulled up behind me asked if the driver was Ok and if we could get through as she had kids on board she needed to get to school., so I said I would walk down and find out what I could as it was only 50 yards down the hill.
Right opposite the upside down Peugeot was a car with its hazards on and a long wheelbase sprinter behind it but smack in the middle of the road facing up the hill. The driver’s side of the Peugeot was a bit crushed and the driver was able to get out of the passenger door and apart from a bleeding bold head and both hands bleeding all cut by the shattered glass windscreen, he was just fine and had no other injuries,
The driver of the sprinter was from the midlands and was a big lad and he had with him another man who was also well built, the driver phoned 999 and reported a car was on its roof, driver out and had only a few cuts, car was not leaking any petrol and no smoke was coming from it and the road was only blocked on one side. Well with that all reported in and the fact the driver of the Peugeot was just fine it was time to ask the sprinter driver to move his van. By this time I had been joined by four other drivers who also felt the van should be moved so we could get the traffic moving again.
Only the sprinter driver who had decided he was in charge, refused to move his van and said he was keeping the road closed until the police arrived. The problem was we were right out in the sticks and it would take some time for the police to arrive and there really was no good reason cars could not pass the over turned Peugeot on the other side of the road.
The other drivers started getting a bit animated and I feared things were going to kick off, but everyone calmed down in the end and I think no one fancied standing up to the very large sprinter driver to much and they all went and sat back in their cars. I feared the road would be closed for ages once the emergency services got there and I was faced with the drive back to Holsworthy and head over towards Hatherleigh but turning off that road and go to Shebbear and then onto Stibb Cross.
So I turned around and had only got a few yards before I had to stop to let a police car and a fire engine past that had come from Holsworthy and I drove another 50 yards and there on my left was a very narrow lane indeed and I thought what the heck, take it and I might get lucky.
As it turned out it was such a great decision and while the road was very tight with some dangerous bends, I saw some great cottages etc; I just love finding these hidden treasures you just never knew where there. I came back onto to the same road I had been on in the end and a few miles past the accident and I was well chuffed I can tell you, who needs a sat nav? Not little Dave for sure.
Blow me I could not believe it as not one but two fire engines were coming at me from either Torrington or Bideford and complete with a fire chief in his red car and then a further two police cars driving so fast and also too fast for the type of road, all on their way to the over turned Peugeot.
So at the scene of the accident you have one over turned car, a man with a few cuts, at least seven policemen, 15 firemen and a fire chief. Now they go on and rightly so about hoax call outs to the fire brigade and for good reason as an engine could be at a hoax call and when a real call came in could be then miles further away then it should have been. Yet at this scene in the middle of nowhere and miles from anywhere, there ended up three fire engines and if there had been a fire in Torrington, Holsworthy or Bideford I expect the building would have burnt to the ground by the time they had got to it.
So who makes the call on what the response should be? Is it someone in a central control room? Or is it left to each service to decide what they want to send? Maybe one of our retired policemen on here will know, all I know it was a waste of very expensive resources and so over the top
Got to go off track here as writing the above I have suddenly remembered something, QUESTION, does the London fire brigade ever put out any car fires? I only ask as I have seen two in London and both times the cars were on the other side of the road well alight stuck in a large traffic jam. As I drove on a mile or so up the road on both occasions I have seen a fire engine with its lights flashing going nowhere stuck in the same jam. A picture always comes into my head when I think about those car fires is that when the fire engine gets there in the end, the fire went out ages before and so they never do ever put out any car fires.
It makes me mad when you can never find a policeman when you want one and when all I hear from the fire brigade is what they are going to be cutting next and today I ended up thinking that if they responded to an incident with just what was needed and not go well over the top, they would not have to look to make savings in the first place.
I left Holsworthy around 8.20am heading for Bideford via Stibb Cross and was not on the road too long before I was forced to stop as the van in front of me put on his hazard lights on the brow of a hill. So I got out of the van and looked down the hill and there were three cars in front of the van and an old blue Peugeot on its roof facing the same way as I had been travelling.
The car had been coming the other way and hit some black ice and hit the bank on the left hand side and then it flipped and flew through the air landing on the other side of the road. As it was an old Peugeot the windscreen was not laminated and as the car fell back onto the road it shattered everywhere.
A lady mini bus driver who had pulled up behind me asked if the driver was Ok and if we could get through as she had kids on board she needed to get to school., so I said I would walk down and find out what I could as it was only 50 yards down the hill.
Right opposite the upside down Peugeot was a car with its hazards on and a long wheelbase sprinter behind it but smack in the middle of the road facing up the hill. The driver’s side of the Peugeot was a bit crushed and the driver was able to get out of the passenger door and apart from a bleeding bold head and both hands bleeding all cut by the shattered glass windscreen, he was just fine and had no other injuries,
The driver of the sprinter was from the midlands and was a big lad and he had with him another man who was also well built, the driver phoned 999 and reported a car was on its roof, driver out and had only a few cuts, car was not leaking any petrol and no smoke was coming from it and the road was only blocked on one side. Well with that all reported in and the fact the driver of the Peugeot was just fine it was time to ask the sprinter driver to move his van. By this time I had been joined by four other drivers who also felt the van should be moved so we could get the traffic moving again.
Only the sprinter driver who had decided he was in charge, refused to move his van and said he was keeping the road closed until the police arrived. The problem was we were right out in the sticks and it would take some time for the police to arrive and there really was no good reason cars could not pass the over turned Peugeot on the other side of the road.
The other drivers started getting a bit animated and I feared things were going to kick off, but everyone calmed down in the end and I think no one fancied standing up to the very large sprinter driver to much and they all went and sat back in their cars. I feared the road would be closed for ages once the emergency services got there and I was faced with the drive back to Holsworthy and head over towards Hatherleigh but turning off that road and go to Shebbear and then onto Stibb Cross.
So I turned around and had only got a few yards before I had to stop to let a police car and a fire engine past that had come from Holsworthy and I drove another 50 yards and there on my left was a very narrow lane indeed and I thought what the heck, take it and I might get lucky.
As it turned out it was such a great decision and while the road was very tight with some dangerous bends, I saw some great cottages etc; I just love finding these hidden treasures you just never knew where there. I came back onto to the same road I had been on in the end and a few miles past the accident and I was well chuffed I can tell you, who needs a sat nav? Not little Dave for sure.
Blow me I could not believe it as not one but two fire engines were coming at me from either Torrington or Bideford and complete with a fire chief in his red car and then a further two police cars driving so fast and also too fast for the type of road, all on their way to the over turned Peugeot.
So at the scene of the accident you have one over turned car, a man with a few cuts, at least seven policemen, 15 firemen and a fire chief. Now they go on and rightly so about hoax call outs to the fire brigade and for good reason as an engine could be at a hoax call and when a real call came in could be then miles further away then it should have been. Yet at this scene in the middle of nowhere and miles from anywhere, there ended up three fire engines and if there had been a fire in Torrington, Holsworthy or Bideford I expect the building would have burnt to the ground by the time they had got to it.
So who makes the call on what the response should be? Is it someone in a central control room? Or is it left to each service to decide what they want to send? Maybe one of our retired policemen on here will know, all I know it was a waste of very expensive resources and so over the top