In his years as a member of the Cook County Ambulance and Hovland Fire Department, Carroll “Keck” Melby of Hovland has grown concerned about the safety of emergency responders at roadside accident scenes. He said nationwide there is an average of one incident responder injured per month. Finding that statistic chilling, Melby is determined to reduce those numbers. He and a number of fire department colleagues implemented the Safety Team Operational Patrol (STOP) program in Cook County. And now, Melby has been selected to work on traffic safety issues nationally.
Melby has been named as a member of a National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) technical committee titled Professional Qualifications for Traffic Control Incident Management. Melby said, “I am thrilled and honored on being selected, especially considering the committee members and the topic.”
The committee has 23 members from a variety of professions—executives from Turnpike, Homeland Security, law enforcement, transportation departments, fire chiefs and others with related knowledge. Melby attended the first meeting in Baltimore, Maryland in April 2011. “Every member of the committee is very passionate about improving temporary traffic control around roadway incidents so there are no secondary incidents. They want all responders to return home safely.”
The goal of the committee is to develop job performance requirements (JPRs) that will become the NFPA professional standards for individuals performing temporary traffic control duties at emergency incidents on or near active roadways. Melby said the standards will identify the minimum job performance requirements necessary to perform those duties and the standards will enable a person to be evaluated on his or her ability to perform the STOP tasks.
Melby said the committee attempted to balance its membership, with no more than one-third of the committee representing a particular discipline. He said the committee is also working to draft the JPRs in layman’s terms, understandable by all. “Another reason I am so pleased to be involved is that this process has representatives from volunteer fire departments and rural areas,” he said.
The JPRs will be developed in the same way that the NFPA standards were created for firefighter I and II professionals. However, the JPRs for traffic control duties will be used by a variety of professions. “Thus, in about three to four years, these JPRs may appear in law enforcement training, department of transportation training, firefighter training and training of other professions that might be involved in roadway incidents.”
Melby said at the first committee meeting, participants detailed all of the basic tasks necessary to set up traffic control at a roadway incident, starting with initial scene size-up through demobilizing the scene. They drafted JPRs and are now reviewing them, to ensure no basic tasks were missed. The drafts will be considered again at the next committee meeting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on July 27 -28. Also to be developed at the next committee meeting is a list of skills required for each JPR.
Once the drafts are finalized, they will be available for review and public comment. The drafts will not be available for public review until then, but Melby said he would like to hear from local responders now. He said if anyone has any ideas they should contact him so he can take those thoughts back to the committee.
The entire process could take about two years. In the interim, Melby said, Hovland’s STOP training program is conducted in concert with the Federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) and the Minnesota flagger training program. It meets many of the current JPRs and once the new JPRs are developed, the Hovland program will be modified as necessary.
Melby encouraged anyone who responds to roadway incidents to consider taking the STOP training. “Responder safety and traffic control at roadway incidents is not just a law enforcement duty,” he said.
He also stressed that people do not have to be firefighters or medical responders to participate in the STOP program. “You just have to want to help your community,” said Melby, adding that many believe that traffic control persons have the most important jobs at roadway incidents. “They take on the responsibility of trying to move the public safely past the incident, keep the incident victims safe until they are removed from the scene, and keep the responders safe so they all go home.”
The Hovland Fire Department welcomes anyone interested to join the STOP program. A training class is planned for August. For more information, contact Hovland Fire Chief Shawn Perich at (218) 475-2515, STOP Captain Kerry Leeds at (218) 475-2664 or Melby at (218) 475- 2412 or kecks@centurytel.net.
Leave a Reply