The Halton Hills Fire Department (HHFD) is asking local drivers to treat flashing green lights just like the red and blue ones on emergency vehicles and yield.
These lights are on the personal vehicles of local firefighters on their way to the station as they respond to a call.
“Our main ask is that everybody do it (yield) safely so that our members can get safely to the firehouse and get out to the emergency calls,” said Captain Al Scott, who's a part-time liaison officer with the HHFD. “We have members that live four or five kilometres away from the station. So it just allows them the ability to get through traffic a little easier.”
Green lights are issued to part-time firefighters and full-timers who have volunteered to be called back. When they're paged to respond to an emergency, they can put the lights on the dashboard of their vehicles to signal to other drivers that they're on the way to a call.
The lights do not afford the user any special privileges like red and blue lights do though. They are still required to abide by traffic rules. The lights help the fire department balance getting to a scene quickly while not breaking the law.
“It doesn't allow us to speed, it doesn't allow us to blow red lights. We have to still conform to the Highway Traffic Act,” said Scott.
Based on his experience, Scott said the lights do work and drivers are pretty good about getting out of the way. However, “issues still pop up.”
“I find our community members that have been here a while really know and understand the importance of the green light program. [But], our region is
growing,” he said. “We have new people moving in, so that continual education piece is very important.”
As part of the fire department’s educational push, the green lights are attached to front-line vehicles as well. That way, the public will hopefully associate them with responding to emergency calls.
Scott also encourages parental involvement in educating their children - who may have recently turned 16 and got their licence - about the importance of yielding to green lights.
More information on this and other fire department programs can be found on the Town of Halton Hills' website.
