As a Mombasha fire truck was exiting its station Wednesday—en route to a gas leak with its lights and sirens activated, mind you—a vehicle traveling toward it entered the safety zone and collided with the apparatus.
After the collision, the other motorist was “extremely uncooperative” and was what the company referred to as “belligerent.” The actions prevented crews from responding to the emergency, in fact.
No firefighters were injured, but the company has made a plea on Facebook:
“YIELD TO EMERGENCY VEHICLES
“Just a reminder, the image in the photo is an emergency vehicle, a fire truck. They come in various sizes and colors including yellow, red, and green.
“If any emergency vehicle including a police car, firetruck, or ambulance has flashing emergency lights activated It is responding to a reported emergency.
“Most are aware our main firehouse is located on 17M. There are diagonal yellow stripes located in front of our firehouse. In New York State it is considered a safety zone.
“Diagonal Yellow Stripes
“Also identified as safety zones are yellow painted islands to tell drivers to stay to the right of the diagonal yellow stripes and to not drive on or over them. They are meant to act as imaginary boulevards.
“Emergency vehicles are permitted to travel in safety zones and other motorists can only travel in the safety zone when directed to by a police officer or a traffic flagger.
“Additionally, as a motorist, when you hear or see an emergency vehicle heading toward your vehicle from any direction, safely pull over immediately to the right edge of the road and stop. Wait until the emergency vehicle passes before you drive on. If you are in an intersection, drive out of it before you pull over.
“Remember, you must pull over and stop for an emergency vehicle even if it is headed toward you in the opposite lane of a two-way roadway.
“Today, this specific firetruck vehicle was exiting the apron of our firehouse with its red lights and siren activated. It was responding to potentially a serious emergency, an active natural gas leak in the Town of Monroe. Gas leaks can cause explosions.
“As our firetruck completed a right turn onto 17M exiting our firehouse a vehicle traveling toward it entered the safety zone in front of our firehouse and collided with our firetruck.
“Even after the collision, the other motorist involved remained extremely uncooperative and was what we would consider belligerent.
“The actions of the other motorist that continued after the collision prevented our apparatus and firefighters from responding to the emergency. Additional apparatus from our Department had to handle the emergency.
”Our crew of firefighters are fine and were not injured.
“We believe our local police department took further action against the motorist that collided with our firetruck as a result of the other motorist’s behavior after the collision.
“Local motorists, please stay out of the safety zone in front of our firehouse and please yield to emergency vehicles. Should you want to complete a left turn onto Freeland Street, please wait for the left turn lane to start before merging into that lane. It will keep all of us safe and law abiding too.
“Stay safe”