Consolidation leading to long lead times sounds like an efficiency / queuing theory thing. The closer capacity gets to demand, the longer it takes for any slight bumps to work their way out of the backlog.

is a key factor behind the steep price hikes and lengthy lead times

I'm not sure I have an opinion on that. Again, I've been away from the fire service for a long time, and there's a lot of issues that I'm probably not fully up-to-date on.

Do you support the custom-build approach?

I have mixed feelings on that, and always have. On the one hand, I do believe that local needs vary a lot from place to place. For example, a rural farming community in Iowa probably genuinely needs things different from, say, San Francisco. But does each department really need to specify every little detail of how their truck is configured? I'm a big proponent of standardization and I sometimes think that people spec'ing fire trucks get too caught in believing "our case is special" when maybe it's not that special after all. So... uh, yeah. I hate to waffle, but it's hard to say for sure.

They're not "custom" they're "pick your product, pick how you want it outfitted from these dropdown menus"

Inflation doubles every 30 years right?

Is that the rule of thumb? I never knew. I guess you only really notice it big-time on large-ticket items that are purchased infrequently like fire trucks. Maybe a car or something, but I never buy brand new cars, so that's probably another reason I haven't been in tune with the degree of inflation.

Probably important to know what percentage that fire truck is of the overall fire department's budget. Has that budget increased with inflation at a comparable amount?

okay, but the example given is that the new trucks are double the doubling.

Poor visibility is partly regulatory driven partly consumer driven. Gotta have those fat A pillars and high beltline with low seating position to max out that crash test rating.

>Itself triggered by poorly thought out public policy.

No. There was no policy that required Ford and Chevy marketing to encourage customers to associate "8 ft high front end" with "better truck".

Pedestrian deaths are related to vehicle grill height, not weight. We could have the same modern monster trucks with a lower grille and have fewer pedestrian deaths.

Have you ever actually ridden with someone under the influence? In contrast to alcohol (or caffeine, among other things) they're generally much less prone to road rage, much less prone to hurried or reckless behavior, and often somewhat paranoid. At least in my personal experience they're more likely to drive under the speed limit than over it.

I strongly suspect that it increases road safety on the whole.

> You can really rely on everyone driving a motor vehicle to obey practically every traffic law every time. That is, they stop for red lights, they stay in lanes, make legal/safe turns; they generally stay near the speed limit and don’t egregiously violate it. And they know that driving is a privilege and that violations can cost them their license, which will cost them their job, their freedom and a lot of things.

Where do you live that this is your observation? This is not what I observe in the United States. Speeding is rampant. Distracted driving is rampant. People roll through stop signs and run red lights enough that everyone should watch out for it.

> It’s a college town, and so there’s lots of young adults and/or foreigners, and they don’t know the laws, and they don’t care, and they walk wherever they want, and they scoot wherever they want, and they bike whatever direction they care about. And traffic laws be damned.

I'm curious what the traffic laws actually are for pedestrians and cyclists in your town. I imagine almost all of them are in regards to interactions with cars, since a pedestrian running into another pedestrian is rarely a life threatening scenario so having a law to enforce pedestrian only traffic isn't a big deal.

>It often confuses motorists when I permit them to enter a driveway rather than walk in front of them. Many motorists are extremely over cautious about pedestrians, and it’s nearly always difficult to convince them that I’m yielding my right-of-way— on foot— and permitting them to do what they want.

In many places the traffic law is to give pedestrians right-of-way over vehicles at otherwise uncontrolled junctions. Motorists are confused because you're asking them to break the traffic laws.

> You can really rely on everyone driving a motor vehicle to obey practically every traffic law every time. That is, they stop for red lights, they stay in lanes, make legal/safe turns; they generally stay near the speed limit and don’t egregiously violate it. And they know that driving is a privilege and that violations can cost them their license, which will cost them their job, their freedom and a lot of things.

What utopia do you live in? There's a major wreck at least once each year a couple blocks away when too many people speed while blowing the stop sign at the same time. There's a motorcyclist routinely going 115mph+ through our 25mph neighborhood, and despite having gotten the police to give him stern warnings on three separate occasions he still hasn't stopped (has slowed down to ~80 most days). The median minimum speed at stop signs is 10mph, which might sound safe, but it's faster if you happen to be crossing the crosswalk at the same time because they have to make sure they can get in front of you -- usually misjudging and requiring me to jump away. And you're right that people usually stay in their lanes ... on straight segments ... on curves I have to be prepared to take evasive action as some pickup truck inevitably borrows half my lane while I'm beside them.

Sure, cyclists usually brazenly flaunt traffic stops, speed limits, and the requirement to share the road, but it's not anywhere near as bad as what the cars are doing.

You make a good point about cyclists, some of whom are only surpassed in misery by swimmers.

But the focus on cars is a risk calculus Probability*impact. If the bike guy hits you, you’ll fall and maybe get hurt. If a car hits you at 30, you’re dead or hospitalized. We rightly empathize threat to life over lower chance of relatively minor injury.

Cars and pedestrian/bikes are an apple to oranges comparison. Its like comparing how we regulate cars to private planes. They just have completely different potential to hurt other people. Placing such a heavy burden on pedestrians/cyclists is just disproportionate to the threat they pose. There is no reason to expect a level play field relative to cars because they are just so different.

And to be clear people should be careful and look after their own safety. But that does not mean they have some moral obligation to help drivers limit the threat they pose. Nor is it reasonable to expect pedestrians to be perfect 100% of the time. Getting drunk, glancing at your phone, being distracted should not be a death sentance.

It is not right for you to choose to operate a deadly vehicle and then offload the dangers of that choice onto innocent bystanders. No pedestrian has forced you to drive a dangerous car around.

Therefore, yes, it is the responsibility of the operator of the vehicle to protect others from the dangers of their choice.

> You can really rely on everyone driving a motor vehicle to obey practically every traffic law every time.

This is satire, right? This is so hilariously wrong it's not worth elaborating on. You yourself even directly contradict this in your last paragraph.

> And they know that driving is a privilege and that violations can cost them their license, which will cost them their job, their freedom and a lot of things.

Driving is generally treated more as a right, especially in the US, where I infer you live. Look up the punishments for killing someone with a car vs not. DUI? No problem, just keep on trucking.

> On the other hand we’ve got cyclists, pedestrians, scooters, wheelchairs: all sorts of other conveyances on the road, and they basically ignore every traffic law imaginable.

Traffic laws only exist because of cars. Mostly due to the danger they cause to everyone.

Ever seen pedestrian only areas with roads, lanes, traffic lights? You haven't because only cars need those.

> Personally, I’m the slowest and smallest thing on the road, and I eagerly defer to everything else that’s bigger and faster than me.

So you break the law on the regular yourself then, sigh. If you have the right of way in the situation, do not preemptively yield. By not acting the way you're expected to, all you do is cause confusion and frustration for everyone else. A basic rule of traffic is to keep things moving and the best way to do that is to follow what's expected of you.

> It feels more dangerous, but that sense of danger is what improves safety.

I think that’s the idea. Well in Europe they may not have a choice in an old part of town. But in US I’ve seen a municipality replace a two lane street with a one lane plus a median. It was specifically done as a traffic calming measure. The wide street somehow made people drive too fast. It worked pretty well I think. It was just unusual as typically we love to expand roads not shrink them.

On the other hand San Francisco has these giant articulated aerial ladder trucks. European trucks reach the same ladder heights on much smaller trucks by having more telescoping segments on the ladder.

I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of it is a feedback loop: wide streets mean fire trucks can be big, big fire trucks mean streets have to be big (even if only the streets the fire department cares about)

Edinburgh's new town (designed 1776) has some very wide streets. When cars were invented they became handy because two cars could be parked nose to nose across the middle of the street plus the usual curb parking on both sides, still leaving room for four lanes of traffic. Traffic calming and pavement|sidewalk widening measures in recent years have reduced this to one vehicle across the middle, curb parking and one lane each way.

>but his point seemed to focus on FDs objecting to bike lanes

The Fire Marshalls are required by law (and oath) to enforce the laws.

They are literally and legally required to object and grant exemptions as appropriate.

And the source for the Peekskill story in the "cited sources" is themselves.

They're using a sourceless article they wrote themselves as a source.

I just finished watching the video and the factual errors are... voluminous.

Entertainingly, the manufacturer is listed as:

> Oshkosh Corporation (current; won rebuy competition)

and that's part of the private equity consolidation of emergency vehicle manufacturers from another comment [1] in this post. Perhaps that means there could be more compact, maneuverable, cabover designs of commercial fire trucks!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43646865

Proportionally they're fine when you look at window and door sizes. They're just short wheelbase 4/8 tonne trucks with a dual cab. You see them fairly often here in .au driven by tradies who actually understand what they need to use for work and entertainingly smaller, easier to park, and have a cargo capacity larger than the shitty utes that all the accountants drive

From my point of view in Europe, where the French vehicles look completely normal, the Californian ones look very aggressive, and like something from a museum.

Very cool, thanks for sharing!