Seward: Traffic law leaves fire truck drivers in ‘legal limbo’
The Daily Mail
Feb. 24, 2009

GREENE COUNTY — Firefighters in Greene County have found support from elected officials in their outrage against a traffic rule that states that to operate a fire truck during a non-emergency, such as during a parade or while returning from a fire, operators need to hold a state commercial driver’s license.

The special license is not needed to operate a truck during an emergency.

“This is crazy,” Catskill Fire Chief Jack Ormerod said. “Any driver can drive to an emergency but can’t drive back.”

Ormerod said volunteer departments are already strapped for manpower and requiring drivers to obtain the special license might deter firefighters from becoming drivers, which in turn could mean trucks could not be driven back to their station houses.

State Department of Motor Vehicles spokesman Ken Brown said the license is required because a fire truck was long enough and heavy enough to be considered a commercial vehicle.

Brown said he did not know why fire departments across the state did not enforce the law starting in 2005, when it was passed.

But Ormerod said he was unaware of the rule until recently and guessed that other chiefs in other departments were in the same position.

State Sen. James L. Seward (R-Milford) confirmed Ormerod’s assumption.

Seward is a co-sponsor of Senate Bill 1634, which corrects the language of the 2005 law by removing the qualification that a commercial vehicle designation does not apply to an emergency vehicle only during its use in an emergency operation.

He said that the Department of Motor Vehicles did not raise the issue in 2005, and its opinion only began to emerge within the last few months.

“It would have been corrected sooner than this if it had come to light,” he said.

He said similar legislation is before the State Assembly, too.

Seward said the Department of Motor Vehicle’s opinion has left fire truck drivers in what he called “legal limbo.”

“It is laughable,” he said.

Seward said Gov. David A. Paterson’s proposed budget also includes language that will correct the rule, and whether the state budget is adopted or the stand-alone bills in the State Legislature pass, the rule will be changed within a month or two.

Richard Harty, who has been active with the Hunter Hose Company No. 1 for more than 50 years and trained firefighters for more than 30 years, said that as it stands, the license rule will have a negative effect on fire companies.

“I don’t think it will deter them from volunteering, it will deter them from driving,” he said.

He said that in the future, municipalities or departments may need to subsidize the cost of the license.

According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, a background check for the license costs $138.35 and a written test costs $5.

Harty said that obtaining the licenses may not be cost effective for some fire departments in the county that see only a handful of emergencies a year.

He said he is aware of only one rollover accident in Greene County involving a truck returning from an emergency.

Cairo Fire Chief Gerard Buckley said that only 20 percent of his drivers over the age of 21 had the licenses and that an emergency could be defined to include the drive back from a fire or accident.

He said the issue would be discussed at the department’s commissioners meeting Tuesday night.