f, like many drivers, you like to have tunes pumping out of your music system to a level that causes your hair to vibrate, then there may be occasions when you're not fully aware that an ambulance is coming up the rear, or perhaps approaching from another street. Of course, this increases the chance of you hindering the progress of the emergency vehicle as it tries to reach some poor fella suffering a cardiac arrest or some other life-threatening condition. At worst, it may mean you don’t notice the ambulance passing through a stop sign, putting it on a collision course with your motor as you enjoy a couple of tracks from one of your lovingly curated playlists. The issue has come to the attention of students in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, prompting them to develop a system that interrupts a car’s music player to alert a driver of an approaching emergency vehicle. Trials for the system, called EVAM, start soon and if successful the team hope to commercialize it. Working at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the student’s system involves a radio transmission from the ambulance to nearby FM tuners equipped with Radio Data System (RDS). The signal is sent over the FM band along with the transmission of a text message that appears in the tuner display. It can also lower the music’s volume and put out an audible voice message via the speakers, warning the driver to take extra care. “Often drivers have only a few seconds to react and give way to emergency vehicles,” says industrial engineering student Mikael Erneberg, one of EVAM’s designers. “The optimal warning time is at least 10 to 15 seconds.”

The Mt. Olive Volunteer Fire Department confirms their fire chief Tracy O. Sanders, 44, has passed away following a wreck near Mudd Street and Highway 77 near Ohatchee Friday afternoon. Sanders was in a truck when she trying to turn left off of Highway 77 and her vehicle was struck from behind by a tractor trailer.
- PUB DATE: 1/17/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WMC-TV Action News5

An unimaginable tragedy struck in a small community of a few dozen homes on Long Key Road in the Florida Keys Monday morning, when three workers from a private contractor tasked with fixing a roadway climbed into a hole in the ground and, ultimately, to their deaths. By the time a Key Largo firefighter climbed into the same hole near Lake Surprise in a desperate attempt to save the men, they were dead.
- PUB DATE: 1/17/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Miami Herald

The Sept. 24 fire in a Canby Park rowhome will go down in Wilmington as one of the most traumatic events in city history. The tragedy ultimately took the lives of three firefighters and injured four more, leaving the department and community reeling. In the days that followed, city officials realized they had another "very serious" problem, said Mayor Mike Purzycki.
- PUB DATE: 1/17/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: USA Today