Emergency Response personnel and electric vehicles

[california]

As the Ford Focus Electric and other electric vehicles become more common, emergency response personnel are at danger when they respond to crashes where hybrid and electric vehicles are involved.

Here's an interesting article that talks about some of the risks, and some of the training that's being done:

Fuel lines, brake lines, and airbag deployment lines always have been a concern, but now emergency personnel need to be cautious of the battery ‘cut points’ that may cause an electric shock

Although the cars are 75 percent lighter, they are now 15 percent stronger, making it difficult for firefighters to cut through it to reach anyone trapped inside.

Full Article:
http://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2011/10/06/192487.htm

As the Ford Focus Electric becomes available, emergency personnel will probably receive specific training on that as well since battery packs are located in all sorts of different locations on different electric vehicles.

 

[rfruth]

The worm is turning, hope emergency rescue is keeping up http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/PDF/research/FFTacticsElecVeh.pdf

 

[NextGenDriver]

I think this is a really important topic and we should really pay more attention to it here on the focus electric forum. While electric cars like the Ford ev will provide all types of new benefits we also need to be as careful as we can when first utilizing them on the road. Here is a great resource I found to learn more about focus electric safety training:

http://www.evsafetytraining.org/Resources/Auto-Manufacturer-Resources/Ford.aspx