Stories about miniature emergency service vehicles are spreading like wildfire on Twitter — so let's rethink our obsession with monster trucks.

OC text below by @[email protected]

Huge fire trucks are a real problem for cities. Requiring roads to be huge so emergency vehicles can move through them is locking streets into being big for unnecessary reasons.

I lived in a tiny town for a few years. They wanted to build a road out to some spread out houses, but couldn’t afford it. The reason? The fire department bought a new huge truck and demanded the road be wide enough for them to turn the truck around anywhere they liked.

The result was part of the city being cut off for decades as the city council fought the firefighters. All because anyone of 1800 people bought a hook and ladder truck capable of handling skyscraper fires. The tallest building in town is three stories and it still burned down, even with the oversized truck on hand.

  • AmazingAwesomator@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    6 days ago

    i think its great having a few of these around that can pull up whenever it gets there for additional support and equipment, but we shouldnt be basing emergency response on these gigantic support vehicles.

    • tazeycrazy@feddit.ukEnglish
      4·
      6 days ago

      Most equipment in a US trucks is in UK engines we just pack it in better and think about space saving methods. The only thing that is constitutionally smalled over here is the pump size. However that said there are always reinforcements and specialists equipment.