• Rexelpitlum@discuss.tchncs.de
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    4 months ago

    Could anyone do a Too Long, Didn’t Watch?

    I’m interested in what this is about but am not able to watch a video right now…

    • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Tldw. It’s not the firedepartment. It’s roads are too wide so vehicles go fast. The FD happen to have large trucks.

      • TheTechnician27@lemmy.worldOP
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        4 months ago

        That’s not an accurate TL;DW. A more accurate one is: Fire department specifications in the US mean that the trucks are wildly oversized for no reason, while European and East Asian ones are smaller, more maneuverable, and safer despite serving the exact same purpose and having the exact same gear. These needlessly oversized trucks are a detriment to safe urban design because fire departments lobby local governments to keep streets ridiculously wide because their trucks can’t properly drive through reasonably sized streets. The size of fire trucks could be reduced and more specialized vehicles used for EMS (which makes up the overwhelming majority of fire department responses), and it would have no impact on the readiness of fire departments at worst or, at best, it would make response times quicker.

        @Rexelpitlum@discuss.tchncs.de, hopefully this suffices.

        • Rexelpitlum@discuss.tchncs.de
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          4 months ago

          Thanks a lot, this is really interesting and seems to be my TIL! I will definitely watch that video later.

          And this also shines an interesting light on the unusually wide street layout of the city quarters I am living in. I’ve been always wondering about that…

          Thing is, my part of town has been the living quarters of GI relatives of an adjacent US military base (up until about 25 years ago). Whole part of town basically has been “Little America” back then, complete with (at least partial) US jurisdiction. And they had their own fire department at the base…