Questionnaire Survey of the Skills of Water Tender Drivers at the Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic

Abstract

The paper summarizes results of the study aimed to evaluate the change of firefightersengineers’ driving skills after attending the one-day training course. The research focused at drivers of firefighting water tenders. These trucks represent the first-response vehicles in case of emergency rides. The water tenders form the majority of firefighting vehicles at units of the Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic with the highest mileage per year. They represent the most important fire appliances at each professional fire station. Water tender drivers’ primary task is to transport both firefighters and vehicles safely without any traffic accident to the intervention point. Therefore, the drivers should acquire the best driving skills. The results of the survey shows both a positive impact of the course - driving skills improved after passing the course, and a negative finding - the insufficiently short duration of training rides on the polygon. Drivers’ skills were examined after a certain time from passing the course. This third phase of our survey showed that “avoiding a sudden obstacle when emergency driving” occurred as a most frequent critical situation. This fact relates with the most frequent cause of firefighting trucks’ traffic accidents in last four years, according to the Statistics of traffic accidents.