If you see vehicles sporting flashing green lights in Vulcan County, it's not the Ghostbusters!

Vulcan County Councillors voted in a new bylaw on February 26, that allows their volunteer firefighters to don flashing green lights in the windshields of their personal vehicles.

Fire Chief and Director of Protective Services Douglas Headrick says the purpose of the lights is to cut down response times.

"It's just about getting the firefighters to the hall quicker which gets them off the pad quicker into that incident maybe one, two or three minutes before they usually would be responding." Headrick explains, "Essentially the lights identify volunteer firefighters when they're responding from their homes or jobs in their personal vehicles. They could be coming down the highway and that green light just shows drivers that they're responding to an emergency call and they're asking for you to yield the right of way."

The lights are allowed under Alberta's Traffic Safety act but aren't commonly seen in the province, as they are in other provinces out east.

Headrick says this new bylaw does not allow firefighters to speed or break any rules of the road, but just gives them an edge when it comes to fighting traffic.

He says that's been a challenge for them in the past.

"This was brought to me by my firefighters, so they've identified that in many instances they've been held up for various reasons in different traffic conditions and they were asking what we could do about it."

Currently MD of Taber and Cypress County also uses the flashing green lights and Headrick says they've seen success with their program, same with departments in other parts of the country.

"When I first started out in Ontario, we did use the green lights. I would travel from the city into rural departments using those green lights which are very well advertised and people typically pull over and yield the right of way for you. It is a lot more predominant over there but they are seeing more use in places like Saskatchewan and Manitoba."

Headrick says he's hoping to spread awareness and says it's important that drivers know, the only time firefighters can use these lights is when they're responding to an emergency, and that they're asked to slow down and yield to those trying to help someone else.

 

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