Roadway Incident Safety: Safe Operations for Rural Roads

By Jack Sullivan

The distribution of Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Traffic Incident Management (TIM) training programs to all emergency responders has been going on for eight years now. By all accounts, more than a half million emergency personnel have completed the four-hour training program either in a classroom or through an online training program. Although many firefighters found the program useful, some attendees had a hard time relating to the material because they operate in a more rural environment where there are no high-speed, limited-access highways. Much of the content of the program is designed to address incidents that occur on interstate highways, freeways, and multilane state routes. The training material only touched on some aspects of handling roadway incidents in more rural environments.

农村挑战

我于2013年去了阿拉斯加，教蒂姆·训练训练课程，在安克雷奇和费尔班克斯教授。我们的消防员，紧急医疗技术人员（EMT），当地警察，州警察，交通运输部（DOT）人员以及一些拖曳/恢复操作员的观众混合。在两个班级的早期，有些事情变得清楚了。

Alaska does not have any interstate highways. Emergency services personnel in Alaska are used to traveling many miles to get to an incident; staffing across all disciplines was lower than what is typical in the lower 49 states. State troopers talked about “routine” three-hour response times for some traffic incidents because of the distance they must travel. Firefighters mentioned long wait times in some cases for law enforcement or DOT resources to arrive, especially when fatalities were involved.

As expected, the weather plays a significant role in dealing with emergency situations in the state, especially in the winter months. When I went to Fairbanks, it was -49°F when we landed, and hard-packed snow covered all roads.

Some of the challenges mentioned during the classes included situations common to rural areas in the lower 49 states.

• Areas serviced by volunteer fire departments can expect longer response times. Volunteer firefighters and EMTs often use personal vehicles to get to an emergency scene; it will take longer to get all the necessary emergency vehicles to the scene.
• Topography and inclement weather conditions present visibility challenges where incident scenes might not be readily apparent to approaching traffic because of curves, hills, high snow berms, fog, snow, or heavy rain.
• The “lane +1” blocking technique that is more common on multilane, high-speed highways is not practical on narrow, two-lane rural routes.
• 在做出回应时，没有道路肩膀或道路某些地方的深沟也可能带来挑战。
• For major incidents that require some time to resolve, rerouting traffic may require miles-long detours or may not be possible at all, leading to long lines of backed-up traffic; this will create additional issues for vehicle occupants who may be stranded for hours.

Although some attendees had difficulty relating to the training program as designed, it was apparent that some of the material was applicable to the rural environment and to the two-lane roads throughout the state.

蒂姆和消防员安全

Let’s review some of the strategies and tactics for TIM and protecting firefighters at roadway operations on rural roads.

• Local TIM committees can help facilitate collaboration, communication, cooperation, and training between the various regional response organizations. The committees can help develop a coordinated response plan for roadway incidents that clearly outlines various roles and responsibilities for each organization. TIM committees can facilitate multidiscipline training sessions so that people can develop working relationships before they meet each other at an incident scene. Committees can help formulate incident response plans for problem areas where incidents frequently occur.
• Follow the National Unified Goal for TIM, which calls for responder safety; safe, quick clearance of roadway incidents; and prompt, reliable, interoperable communications.
• Follow the “Control of Traffic Through Traffic Incident Management Areas” guidance, Chapter 6-I in the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) and any state supplement for your state. Equip fire apparatus with temporary traffic control devices such as road cones (orange and a minimum of 28 inches high; preferably 36 inches high), advance warning signs, and electronic or chemical flares and deploy them according to the guidelines in the MUTCD (photo 1). Note that cones that are 28 inches or higher should have two reflective bands per MUTCD guidelines instead of the one reflective band shown on the cones in photo 1.
• Follow “Traffic Incident Management” guidelines in National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1500, Standard on Fire Department Occupational Safety, Health, and Wellness Program.
• Use the incident command system and unified command structure for roadway incidents.
• 开发道路事件响应标准操作程序（SOP）和培训人员。每年与所有人员一起检查本地SOP，并根据需要进行修改或编辑。根据NFPA 1500，所有消防部门均应在道路事件安全程序上培训其人员。
• Personnel must wear high-visibility personal protective equipment when operating on roadways. Firefighters exposed to flame, heat, or hazardous materials should wear NFPA-compliant turnout gear. Protect the incident work area with a substantial blocking vehicle.
• Train, prepare, and equip personnel to handle manual traffic control procedures. Train personnel on using the proper hand signals to stop or direct traffic near an incident scene. Equip members assigned to traffic control with stop/slow paddles, flashlights, traffic wands, cones, and flares to slow traffic and guide motorists through a congested incident scene.
• 最初，使用大型火灾设备作为阻止车辆，以在事件现场创建安全的工作区域。您可能无法阻止“车道+1”，但是您应该能够阻止任何工作区域接近人员进行消防，解脱或患者护理的交通。188金博网网址多少准备提供手动交通管制和方向，以最大程度地减少原始事件附近次要崩溃的机会。在某些情况下，可能有必要阻止整个道路以解决最初的事件。知道谁可以通知您是否关闭道路，请要求其他机构提供额外的支持，并确保为接近交通备份的驾驶员安排提前警告（照片2）。
  

  (2)
• Implement safe parking (or blocking or safe positioning) by turning steering wheels away from the work area, deploying chock blocks, and ensuring that personnel are aware of the “zero buffer” zone where personnel might come closest to moving traffic while working around blocking apparatus.
• 为火灾设备配备高可见性标记，并与紧急警告灯，洪水和向前的白灯一起使用酌处权，以避免盲目的驾驶员，这些驾驶员可能会从任何方向上接近事件区域。
• Advance warning is especially critical in rural areas with reduced visibility because of weather or topography. Use emergency vehicles or warning signs well in advance of any backlog so that drivers can slow their approach or alter their route to avoid blocked roads. Digital alerting systems that provide travel information on navigation apps through smartphones or vehicle entertainment systems can be extremely helpful for advising motorists of incident scenes ahead. The first-arriving units may not know the exact location of an incident until they arrive on scene. In photo 3, the first unit on scene deployed an advance warning sign close to the incident. Ideally, advance warning signs should be located 250 feet or more upstream of an incident, depending on the rural road topography and line-of-sight conditions like curves, hills, fog, or other factors limiting visibility for approaching traffic.
  

  (3)

  Add additional traffic controls and deploy them farther upstream as additional units respond to the incident. An overview of the scene shows the good positioning of fire, police, and EMS vehicles and the proper cone deployment for this incident (photo 4).

  

  （4）
• 在你的社区与公民沟通about how to react when driving around emergency incident scenes. Remind them to yield the right-of-way for responding emergency vehicles and coach them on how to react to parked emergency vehicles and personnel operating at an incident scene. Discourage the use of smartphones to take photos or video and remind people to watch where they are going, watch the traffic in front of them, and use caution and proceed slowly near the work area.

当前版本的国家交通事故管理培训计划可能不会详细地解决农村道路环境，但好消息是，一个项目正在进行中，以开发专门为农村道路设计的培训计划的版本。开发该新程序将需要一些时间；同时，您可以做很多事情来保护您的人员在事件场景中。确保道路事件运营和安全是您的年度培训计划之一。

作者注：The following training program is free from the Responder Safety Learning Network: Traffic Incident Management on Rural Roads (https://bit.ly/3eTQQTJ).

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Jack Sullivan,CSP，CFPS是紧急响应者安全研究所培训主任，在那里他为应急人员教授道路事件安全和生存研讨会。他是道路事件行动和紧急人员安全的主题专家。沙利文（Sullivan）是一名志愿消防员兼首席执行官23年。