First responders risk their lives to protect yours.
But they often time find themselves taking on more risk than necessary when responding to accidents on or near roads.
“It’s not safe out there, many of us in the fire departments will tell you they’d rather respond to a fire and deal with that then be out on the roadways just because of the dangers that are out there,” said Merrill Fire Chief Josh Klug.
Those dangers that Klug is referring to is mostly drivers.
People who don’t slow down when the see firetrucks and police cars pulled off to the side of the road.
The ones that pull off out their phones to snap a picture or video of the accident.
Klug says firefighters go through extensive training to keep themselves safe on the roads, but that only goes so far.
“It really comes down to having attentive drivers paying attention as they approach an emergency scene on the highway,” he said.
A new bi-partisan law is aimed at giving drivers extra motivation to pay attention.
Wisconsin Act 115 was signed into law earlier this month.
It creates a new emergency response zone and strengthens penalties for traffic violations like reckless driving in areas where emergency and roadside response vehicles are present.
It also bans cell phone use while driving in an area of incident.
“At the end of the day, we just want, like everybody, to come home to our families at the end of our shift, at the end of the call. We can’t do that the public support of doing their job, which is attentive driving out on the roadways,” said Klug.
Klug says the biggest thing you can do is slow down and move over when you see them pulled over on the side of the road.
