Fire engine on blues and twos (and very loud horn) takes the side off your parked car

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robert.saunders

MB Enthusiast
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Oct 11, 2004
Messages
3,744
Location
South Lincs / Hampshire
Car
W210 E300TD
On its way to a 'shout'.

Question is, do you get annoyed or not?!

Scenario:

Vehicle (not mine) parked up on side of road, very narrow street which is a dead end. Cars parked both sides of road, no off-road parking to speak off. No parking restrictions. Mostly terraced and semi-detached houses.

Fire engine arrives, siren wailing, horn blaring; everyone comes running out of the street, starts to see the engine, shift their cars etc.

One owner sees her car with the fire engine wedged against it; it ain't really going anywhere, so one of the crew say to the driver "go on" and so the driver does, and removes the side off the Suzuki Vitara.

Any thoughts? How would you feel/react?

I'll post further detail to any question you may have! (I sound like Glojo now :cool: )

Rob
 
One owner sees her car with the fire engine wedged against it; it ain't really going anywhere, so one of the crew say to the driver "go on" and so the driver does, and removes the side off the Suzuki Vitara.

Are you saying that at this point the Engine has made contact with the Suzuki and that by moving it on the instructions (sorry, advice...) of the Crew, more damage is caused?

Or

That things were tight and the driver moved the vehicle thereby causing the contact and subsequent damage?
:)
 
Trashing a Suzuki Vitara sounds like a job well done to me :devil:
 
I think what happened (I was present, but not quite at the point of impact) was that the fire engine tried to get through, was very close to the car on its right (the car in question) and basically hit against it thereby becoming 'wedged'.

The owner at this point was in front of the fire engine and heard the crew commander (?) shout "go on; go through" and so the driver did. It is surmised that any minor-ish damage (really only to the wing/driver door) was extended along the side of the car, damage being left was:

front wing marked
door damaged & dented
door mirror damaged
both off-side alloys scraped
rear tyre punctured
all side trim removed
rear wing dented & scraped

The fire crew returned approx. 5 minutes later to assess the damage and discuss the insurance.
 
On the face of it, sounds like a job for the Brigade insurance company - and given that they could actually quite legitimately push a vehicle out of the way to allow access, I would *guess* they would make an ex-gratia payment (but likely to depend on the policy of the organisation in question).

:eek:
 
Being more serious, it sounds like there should be some parking restrictions on this road if it's so narrow that a fire engine (hence presumably also delivery trucks etc.) can't get down otherwise??
 
It's in Nottingham, many streets like this...

I think what bothered most people was that the shout wasn't a house fire....

Then it gets into the realms of what is a big emergency and was is a small emergency - is there a difference? Does it justify the damage to the car, if it's a cat stuck up a tree (joke - it wasn't that anyway!)
 
I was assuming that if it was on blues & twos it was an emergency call i.e. lives at risk, although you did say they were back within 5 mins!
 
There is always a case for asking not "What were the circumstances?", but "What did the person believe to be the case at that time?" (so removing the benefit of hindsight and assessing the decision made on the information available at that time.

With mobile phones, a single incident can generate many 999 calls - to look at the difference in what people say has happened is significant. Same incident gets described as "Carnage", "Major Accident", "Big Collision", "A shunt", "No one hurt, bit of a prang"....

So, based on that, do they send a single unit? several? ambulance? Air Ambulance?

Joe Public is a notoriously poor judge of what is required (cause they just don't know!).

Personally, I wouldn't expect any response to a cat up a tree. Tell them to sort it out themselves.

:eek:
 
As there were no parking restrictions and the car wasnt parked illegally or otherwise causing a normal obstruction, then its the fire brigades fault.
Much the same as jumping red lights in reply to an emergency call etc.....
My estate has VERY narrow roads and its a scenario I have often pondered.............
Therefore the reply will be very interesting. Please let us know.
 
They must have plenty of roads like that, there certainly are a lot in the back streets of towns everywhere.:crazy: Driver still at fault though, he knew it was tight and he still didn't wait for the owner to move it.

I was driving my new Mercedes a few years ago, 2 hours old, in the Derbyshire Peaks, on a country lane. When I heard a siren and around the bend above the bushes I could see a fire-engine coming at speed. I moved over to the left as far as I could and stopped just before the bend. The fire engine cut the corner and screamed past me, how he missed me I will never know?:crazy: :crazy:
 
Good job there was no collission Brian. Your car could have filled up with water!
 
Question is, do you get annoyed or not?!
No. Not that I'd want it to happen of course!! Much easier to type in a hypothetical scenario than it would be to do in a real life scenario.

Any thoughts? How would you feel/react?
Based on the description it sounds like the damage had already been done, and further damage would come from detaching the fire engine and car in order for the crew to continue on their callout.

The fact that the car driver moved causing the damage is not significant IMHO as it would have happened regardless of which driver actually started to move.

Sounds fairly likely that the brigade's insurer should pay out.
 
Isn't there a requirement in law to allow access to emergency vehicles? If not is there not one in common sense?
Hard luck I would say.
Could you send the same crew to a road near me where a CLK owner and an A6 owner insist on parking at the narrowest point opposite each other. Both have more than adequate space in other parts of the road and their own driveways. It seems to be a contest of who owns the road.
 
The fact that the car driver moved causing the damage is not significant IMHO as it would have happened regardless of which driver actually started to move.

Sounds fairly likely that the brigade's insurer should pay out.

Sorry, I wasn't clear when I described it earlier. The car driver didn't move the car at all; the appliance driver hit the parked car, and when was just sat there sirens wailing and blaring his horn (very loud - WOW, how loud are those!) and when most of the street came out, including the car driver, the 'commander' in the back of the fire appliance told the fireman driver to move on and damage the car a lot more than it had already.

The car driver wasn't given any chance to move their car.
 
Isn't there a requirement in law to allow access to emergency vehicles? If not is there not one in common sense?
Hard luck I would say.
Could you send the same crew to a road near me where a CLK owner and an A6 owner insist on parking at the narrowest point opposite each other. Both have more than adequate space in other parts of the road and their own driveways. It seems to be a contest of who owns the road.

Now THAT is a scenario many of us can relate too. Its almost like a modern day gladatorial contest. Repeated on many "executive" housing estates around the country on a grand scale I bet. Pathetic and totally childish - specially if there is room on their drives staying empty.
 
If:
  1. the car was parked legally, and
  2. in the judgement of the Commander of the Fire crew, the right action was to plough it out of the way;
then surely that decision will have been based on;
  1. the need to answer their emergency call; against
  2. the inconvenience to the car owner in getting the Brigade's process, (be that insurance or otherwise) to compensate for the damage they willingly caused.
I'm not sure I understand the question being asked - sorry :eek: Is teh brigade in question saying they are not responsible?
 
Question is, how would you feel and react if it was your car?

If it was a rusty Mercedes then pretty happy...
 

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