Behind the wheel

Clarence Tabb Jr. / The Detroit News Sgt. Paul Berry of Ladder 4 directs Derrick Mahone as he learns how to park the ladder in the station. This was the first time Mahone was behind the wheel of the vehicle. Drivers receive substandard training within the department.

Drivers get scant training

Some firefighters cause accidents during on-the-job lessons in trucks

By Charles Hurt and Melvin Claxton / The Detroit News

David Guralnick / The Detroit News This Ladder Company 30 truck responded to a fire at Dwyer and Hilldale East with a smashed up front end from a previous mishap.

artin O’Brien drove fire trucks for 15 years before the Detroit Fire Department gave him his first driver’s education lesson. The instruction consisted of a half-day classroom lecture on basic state driving laws. That lecture and his on-the-job experience was enough to get him his driver’s certification 10 years ago.
    In his 25 years with the department, O’Brien — now a senior driver — has never driven with an instructor. His practical training has come from driving fire trucks at high speeds to fires.
    O’Brien’s story is the rule, not the exception in the Fire Department.
    For years, fire officials have put untrained drivers behind the wheels of their biggest trucks. The drivers are provided scant classroom teaching and almost no practical training.
    They have crashed rigs, struck parked cars and run off the road. And the department is so short of experienced drivers it usually has little choice but to let them keep driving.
    Fire officials say they don’t keep track of accidents involving untrained drivers. But a Detroit News survey of city accident records show these drivers were behind the wheel in dozens of accidents.
    In 1998 and 1999, city fire trucks were in 257 accidents. In 97 of these cases, there was no dispute that the firefighters driving contributed to the accident, according to city records.
    Many were untrained drivers who haven’t even met the city’s limited certification requirements. They are nicknamed starmen because of the asterisk beside their names on duty rosters when they are assigned to drive.
    Some don’t even have to leave the station to get in trouble.
    On Feb. 1, 1998, an untrained driver was performing a routine maintenance check on Ladder 10. When the driver, listed only as a starman in city records, started the truck, it jumped forward and slammed into the closed garage door of the firehouse.
    Another unidentified starman was behind the wheel of Ladder 14 on Nov. 15, 1998, when the crew was called to a fire. As the untrained driver pulled out of the station, he failed to notice an open side compartment door, which wrenched off as he pulled through the garage door.
    On Jan. 9, 1999, firefighter Darnell Brown, who wasn’t certified to drive, was behind the wheel of Ladder 1, responding to a fire alarm at the Renaissance Center. When the fire engine he was following stopped for directions from a RenCen security guard, Brown didn’t.
    He rammed his truck into the back of the engine, damaging both rigs.
    He kept on driving fire trucks and became a certified driver in February.
    Another starman, Terrence Lane, was driving Ladder 20 on Feb. 25, 1998. He didn’t wait for the garage door to open before backing in. The back of the truck hit the bottom of the garage door.
    But fire officials didn’t take Lane off the road. On Sept. 12, 1998, he was behind the wheel when a side compartment door flew open and slammed a car as he passed it.
    Driving the Fire Department’s huge trucks is made all the more treacherous because of poor maintenance to the rigs.
    On May 24, 1998, Engine 41 was responding to an alarm when the strap that holds the fire hoses on back broke. The hose unraveled and hit a parked car, damaging the car’s bumper.
    A certified driver, Reginald Harper, was behind the wheel of Ladder 13 on Sept. 7, 1998. Pulling into Fort Wayne, Ladder 13’s brakes failed when the truck lost air pressure. The truck smacked into the fort’s entrance gate and stone pillar.
    Fire Commissioner Charles Wilson, who took the helm in January, told The News he’s appalled at the department’s driver training program and has plans to improve it.
    Wilson said 10 days ago he issued a memo aimed at putting together a state-certified driver’s training course. He is also insisting that every firefighter get six hours of classroom instruction and two hours of actual driving.
    But the city is having a hard time providing the practical training, deputy chief Tyrone Scott said.
    Instructors don’t have a place large enough to set up orange cones for the lumbering rigs to drive around. And the training academy doesn’t have a fire truck.
    What’s more, Detroit fire officials must close a neighborhood fire company so the trainees will have a truck to use for practice.

David Guralnick / The Detroit News Firefighters from Engine Company 50 wait for clearance to leave the scene of a minor accident with a small car Sept. 1. The accident occurred at Gratiot and Lorretto when the truck was racing to the scene of a fire. There were no injuries.

Contact the reporters at churt@detnews.com and mclaxton@detnews.com.