Are some traditions just bad behaviors? - Chris Huston

What is a tradition? One web reference defines it as “an inherited pattern of thought or action”. We do what we do because it's always been done that way. The fire service has many great traditions. Honor, Pride and Bravery just to name a few. But where do we draw the line between traditions and just bad behaviors? Let's take a look at some bad behavior.

We know that seat belts help save lives yet we still allow non department personnel to ride in the bucket or on top of the rig for parades. What exactly is a behavior? It is the manner of acting or controlling yourself. It's how you act or control yourself in your environment or to a situation. In the above example we know that it is unsafe for us to respond on the top of the rig but we react to the situation by giving the people what they want, a show. We allow the situation to control our behavior rather than our behavior control the situation. It happens more frequently than we think.

Recently a story was released about dash cameras in the apparatus. Some of the footage shows the driver blowing past red lights even though his brother firefighter was telling him slow down the light is red. One tradition of the fire service is “you call, we come!” Big red trucks, bright lights and blaring sirens, we come. It's a good tradition. Some of the bad behaviors we exhibit not stopping at red lights, driving too fast, not driving defensively and of course thinking “we are in the big red truck with lights and sirens all traffic will stop, bow down to me for I am the Fire Department and I have never been in a crash!” We all know this is not true, if it were our LODD numbers would be significantly lower right?

If we were to recognize that when we change our behavior we can change the bad tradition of killing firefighters each year in motor vehicle crashes. Behave in the chauffeur's seat as if you were driving your family to the park. Wear your seatbelts, stop at all red lights, drive defensively and get them their safe. After all your firefighter brothers and sisters are family.

In this article I stressed the point of bad behaviors while driving the apparatus. This is something we can change today to decrease Firefighter LODD's and injuries. It's easy to implement and will get us results. There are plenty of other areas where our behaviors and bad traditions are getting us into trouble. If you think that one of your department's traditions could get someone hurt or killed, stop, think and ask why do we do this?

For more ways to change our culture, traditions and behaviors visit everyonegoeshome.com or contact your state Advocate.

{About the author. Michigan Firefighter I&II, NREMT-B, Probationary Instructor And Company Officer I&II certified. He is Assistant Training Officer for Bertrand Township Fire Training Division, a Fire Technician at DC Cook Nuclear Plant, a state Advocate for Everyone Goes Home and operates a D.I.Y. Firefighter website http://engineco22.net}