Why Don't Firefighters Wear Seat Belts? What's the Rush?

Firefighters in the line of duty die from many causes. One, which is avoidable, is seat belt non-compliance. On average 100 firefighters die each year and 25% are attributed to motor vehicle accidents. Of that figure ¼ are firefighters being ejected from either a fire apparatus or their personally-owned vehicles while responding an emergency.

Eight-five respondents in a northeastern, urban, career fire department answered a twenty-four-question survey, which was the capstone of the research. Over 75% of the respondents wear seat belts 25% of the time or less, when responding to an emergency. Almost 2/3 of the respondents believe they have more important things to do than buckle their seat belts. Almost 40% of these emergency responders do not believe that a lack of seat belt compliance causes firefighter fatalities. One of the over-arching factors is that 95% of the respondents believe that every second counts in responding to an emergency scene. Forty percent of them indicated their immediate supervisor never enforces seat belt compliance and 25% of the respondents strongly disagreed that there employer even had a seat belt requirement.

The fire service needs to change regarding seat belt compliance and develop a training curriculum for firefighters. This curriculum should be crafted to insure that seat belt compliance becomes second nature to every firefighter. On an organizational level there needs to be a strict enforcement of a seat belt compliance policy when put in place.