Parking a squad-car in a fire lane.....for coffee?

[pitchbaby]

i reminds me of having a new trainee driving his first night. we went to a call at an apartment complex and he's driving around looking for a parking space.

i had to explain to him what the "E" on our plate stood for and why we always park where we can swing the rear doors all the way open...there is nothing worst than getting back to your car struggling with a guy in cuffs and not being able to get your back door open

Many years ago, I had to drive a state vehicle for work with the "E" on the plate... I knew exactly what it meant, but I was never lead to believe that my exemption would allow me all access parking, even while "on duty".

I was not LE.... it as a Fish and Game truck and I was an intern. I was told I could park/drive anywhere I had to, but all access parking had kind of an unwritten rule of "don't do it" even when you need to get in and about fast for work stuff. So I don't think the "E" is equal even though it is exempt.

[rudeboy3]

This is the truth I have seen it more then once where a LEO has blocked us in or blocked our access. Take a look at how everyone parks next time.

Congrats on saving a life this is definitely not the norm. How Many LEO's have an EMT or performed CPR other then in a class room? not many . It not a good Idea to take the child to the hospital by squad car. Most every FD in Ca run Paramedic engines there a life saving drugs that you don't have and the national response time on scene is 5 min. It is better to start CPR and wait for the the FD to get on scene so that they can tube and push drugs.


I don't dislike cops. I'm a Fire Captain/Peace Officer

Im a little hesitant on thinking your a Fire Captain/LEO for a few reasons, your grammer for one, Captains have to do a large amount of paperwork and your grammer makes it appear you dont type or write much at all, second, you say "most every FD in Ca run Paramedic engines there a life saving drugs...", no sorry not most every FD is medic, third, that is the most absolute worst advice I have ever heard a "Fire Captain/Peace Officer" give to a responding officer that is minutes ahead of Fire on a legit medical aid for an infant. Im not sure if you know how much bigger a difference a DOCTER will do vs a Paramedic. Please stop trolling we all know it. If you are a FF you really need some CE's.

[retired]

Come on guys; let's calm down a bit so the thread doesn't have to be locked.

Please do not accuse someone of not being what they say are, unless you have evidence to the contrary, despite what you may think.

[MAVERICK]

Im a little hesitant on thinking your a Fire Captain/LEO for a few reasons, your grammer for one, Captains have to do a large amount of paperwork and your grammer makes it appear you dont type or write much at all, second, you say "most every FD in Ca run Paramedic engines there a life saving drugs...", no sorry not most every FD is medic, third, that is the most absolute worst advice I have ever heard a "Fire Captain/Peace Officer" give to a responding officer that is minutes ahead of Fire on a legit medical aid for an infant. Im not sure if you know how much bigger a difference a DOCTER will do vs a Paramedic. Please stop trolling we all know it. If you are a FF you really need some CE's.

Trolling I made how may post in this thread?
Never said I was an English Major and from your spelling neither are you!

What Ernie did on this call may very well have been the best thing for this patient. If you are 100% sure you are going to make it to the hospital before the first fire or ambulance arrives. LOAD and GO I did not read that the patent was a infant and that does make a difference.

Ernie I apologize I miss read you post fore some reason I was thinking this was an 11/12yr old

[Hdawg]

As far as I'm concerned, you can park where you like and drive as fast as you want. There are two things I see all the time that really bug me, though. LEOs driving while talking on their cell phones; and stopped at a light, getting tired of waiting and turning on the lights and sirens for 2 seconds to drive through the intersection before the light turns green. I could be wrong, but if it were a call, I would think they would not have waited at the light at all, and they would leave the lights and sirens on if the call came while they were stopped at the light.

As far as protect and SERVE, don't blame us for that one, it's on LEO cars from at least two agencies in this area.

Btw, I am curious as to why it is OK to park in a fire lane when there is no emergency, but a handicapped spot is off limits. If parking in a fire lane with no emergency is OK to have quicker access to your car, what if a handicapped space affords even quicker access?

[FLIGHT762]

. There are two things I see all the time that really bug me, though. LEOs driving while talking on their cell phones; and stopped at a light, getting tired of waiting and turning on the lights and sirens for 2 seconds to drive through the intersection before the light turns green. I could be wrong, but if it were a call, I would think they would not have waited at the light at all, and they would leave the lights and sirens on if the call came while they were stopped at the light.

As far as protect and SERVE, don't blame us for that one, it's on LEO cars from at least two agencies in this area.

Btw, I am curious as to why it is OK to park in a fire lane when there is no emergency, but a handicapped spot is off limits. If parking in a fire lane with no emergency is OK to have quicker access to your car, what if a handicapped space affords even quicker access?

LEO's are exempt from the hands free cell phone use if their using the phone for official duties. When I was a supervisor,I was constantly on the phone talking to Dispatchers,other Officers on calls, etc. What I did when I could was to pull to the curb and talk. It just looked better to the public. I did discipline Officers who were on the phone not using it properly, although it was difficult to do.

As far as pulling up to intersections and using the lights/siren momentarily, I've done it numerous times. There can be a lot of reasons to do so. Be assured, the Officer is on the way to a call and not going to lunch, get a newspaper, etc.

As far as parking in a fire lane when not on a call, I never did it. I was always able to find a parking spot close enough to get to my car quickly( I spent my 28 + years in the Patrol Division). I enforced the traffic laws vigorously and I just didn't have a double standard for me, although I saw plenty of other Officers do it.
If I had to pick between parking in a fire lane or handicapped space(while on a call for service),I'd take the fire lane every time. It just looks bad. Taking a parking space away from a disabled person is looked at as a very low thing to do and rightly so. One of the things that would chap my hide was to drive past the Fire Station in the morning at shift change and see the going off duty Fire fighters using the disabled space in their parking lot to put their gym bags in when leaving, too lazy to walk a few more feet to a proper space. Like I said, It looks bad.

I thought of this thread a few days ago when I was meeting a friend to give him some ammo at a local Starbucks. I was looking for a parking space and
saw a Police car parked crooked,taking up two spaces, there was no reason for it, other than laziness. The Officer was sipping coffee with some buddies yacking it up. He was grossly overweight and like I said before,it just looks bad in the public eye. I got a chuckle out of it.

[9mmepiphany]

Get a thermos like the rest of the working public.

I visit coffee shops (I don't do donuts) and other businesses in my patrol area as a courtesy to them

[zfields]

I know a bit late to the party, But gdamn Ron, that was a good post.

I've gotta chime in here Chuck. I've been doing this 32 years and counting. While I agree that LE should not park in fire lanes as a routine and never in a handicapped except in an emergency, your post is starting to sound a little anti-LE. I've seen many of your previous posts and you've never projected that attitude, so my guess is that it was NOT your intention to sound anti at all.

In California the primary answering point for 911 calls is the LEA in about 90% of the cases. We get the call before fire and have units rolling while fire is still taking the information. The deputy/officer is going to bust his way into the house and be the one handing the child out the window to the firefighter as they raise the ladder up. One of the big differences here is that fire responds from a station where they are waiting for a call. If it's in the middle of the night, they are asleep. That's just the way it is. My brother and several relatives are firefighters, so I have the utmost respect for them. LE just gets there first because we are roving in the field when the 911 call comes in.

I can't count the number of times when I was first on the scene on a medical aid call, doing CPR while asking for an ETA from fire between breaths and compressions. I've given CPR in a moving car and had the baby at the hospital before fire even cleared their station.

I've been INSIDE the burning car with two kids who were near death and would have died if I left them. I've gone in the burning house to make sure everyone got out. I've had the baby die in my arms from gunshot wounds in a drive by shooting where they shot up the house while fire waited down the street because they were waiting for the all clear.

And as someone else posted, I can't tell you how many times the meal or beverage I finally got time to buy went into the trash without a bite/drink becasue of the emergency call.

I'm not complaining, it's just what we do. On my department (LASD, same as Topgun7) we are never 'out of service' during our shift to eat, go to the bathroom, etc. When I had a partner rather than working a 1 man unit, we often rolled code 3 with prisoners in the back seat on life threatening emergencies.

That's how we roll, and damn proud of it.

Aloha,

Ron

[youtellme]

Thanks for the response. It's refreshing , to say the least.

[lvsfinest]

I don't consider a coffee break a good reason to park in any restricted area. It makes me and my department look bad , in the public light. Sure, we can get away with it,but why do it? I'm sure there are officers that work in cities where it's next to impossible to do otherwise, but I'd still question the necessity in doing so. Coffee isn't a necessity.

[meangreen46]

I've actually seen colleagues rolling code3 to get out of traffic or parking in red zones for hours. My catch on the whole thing is that it will inevitably catch up with them. A guy at my station was rolling code on the freeway when a CHP unit pulled in behind him for backup. It was a little embarrassing when they got off the freeway and he had to explain why he wasn't responding to anything. I bet he'll never do that again.

[meangreen46]

I've gotta chime in here Chuck. I've been doing this 32 years and counting. While I agree that LE should not park in fire lanes as a routine and never in a handicapped except in an emergency, your post is starting to sound a little anti-LE. I've seen many of your previous posts and you've never projected that attitude, so my guess is that it was NOT your intention to sound anti at all.

In California the primary answering point for 911 calls is the LEA in about 90% of the cases. We get the call before fire and have units rolling while fire is still taking the information. The deputy/officer is going to bust his way into the house and be the one handing the child out the window to the firefighter as they raise the ladder up. One of the big differences here is that fire responds from a station where they are waiting for a call. If it's in the middle of the night, they are asleep. That's just the way it is. My brother and several relatives are firefighters, so I have the utmost respect for them. LE just gets there first because we are roving in the field when the 911 call comes in.

I can't count the number of times when I was first on the scene on a medical aid call, doing CPR while asking for an ETA from fire between breaths and compressions. I've given CPR in a moving car and had the baby at the hospital before fire even cleared their station.

I've been INSIDE the burning car with two kids who were near death and would have died if I left them. I've gone in the burning house to make sure everyone got out. I've had the baby die in my arms from gunshot wounds in a drive by shooting where they shot up the house while fire waited down the street because they were waiting for the all clear.

And as someone else posted, I can't tell you how many times the meal or beverage I finally got time to buy went into the trash without a bite/drink becasue of the emergency call.

I'm not complaining, it's just what we do. On my department (LASD, same as Topgun7) we are never 'out of service' during our shift to eat, go to the bathroom, etc. When I had a partner rather than working a 1 man unit, we often rolled code 3 with prisoners in the back seat on life threatening emergencies.

That's how we roll, and damn proud of it.

Aloha,

Ron

Awesome post! You should put this on the recruitment website.

[serpicoish]

A lot rationalization going on here. Just don't do it for coffee and all is well. Dumb argument.

[BillCA]

Serpicoish,

To some extent, sure. But I also don't begrudge them some leeway either. Their job is different than many other jobs. I know that if he's stopped in that firelane and getting a coffee in starbucks, it's likely it is his first chance all shift to make a brief stop for some go-juice.

I've also seen an officer park in a fire lane and come out and load six carry-out trays around 7 in the morning. Not to supply the office, but because they'd been working a barricaded suspect nearby since 3am. He was coming on-shift, I found out later, so his first assignment was to bring the graveyard guys some coffee.

I'm willing to cut them some slack on something like this as long as it's not abused.

[Patrick Aherne]

This whole thing comes down to perception. Parking in a red zone looks bad. Parking in a yellow loading zone also looks bad. I once received a parking ticket from SF DPT on my marked Sheriff's Unit for parking in a yellow zone while serving papers.

Parking in red zones should be frowned upon, institutionally. However, I see no problem with it at shopping malls, with the wide lanes and red zone completely around the buildings, usually.

I will not, however, take criticism from a firefighter over parking.

0-4, by the way on CPR, so maybe I should wait for the BRT to show up next time.