SA Firefighter
General Discussion => Country Fire Service => Topic started by: Hair on November 27, 2009, 06:27:19 PM
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I've started this thread due to the amount of appliances being 'offline until further notice' recently.
I drive and help maintain a small fleet of buses with my boss.
Every year, each bus requires a mandatory on road safety check before it can be re-registered.
Maybe CFS should have appliances checked every 2-3 years by Transport SA.
TSA know where to look for stress points or areas that may wear out.
How thorough are some mechanics?
Do they check shackle pins for wear, chassis for cracks etc and what about braking efficiency?
Some may, others not.
I know CFS has different levels of servicing for the ages of appliances, but the terrain these are subjected to is generally harsher than the open road.
If TSA were to inspect all appliances at, say, 3, 6, 9 years etc, we all would know that there is some uniformity with road worthiness.
Unfortunately, as all government departments there is a high fee attached.
I think this year is around $240. Not bad compared to 10 years ago when it was around $80.
Feel free to add comments
Hair
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It sounds as sensible as Fire Alarm Systems in fire stations. :)
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Not the worst idea I have heard, considering how much of the fleet seems to be falling over at the moment, and the various mechanics that area used, god knows what is happening to them.
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Certainly some of the issues have been driver error and damage sustained to the appliances either at training or on the fireground,correct me if I am wrong but I still think there is too much rush and not enough planning when driving into situations (too much push from the oic possibly?). Have majority of the offlines been due to maintenance or damage issues?
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who does the regular servicing on the appliances? does CFS have a specific scheduled servicing programme? Or just left up to the locals and the manufacturers recommendations?
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There is a service book, but its left upto the local mechanics, we have changed recently for good reason :-P
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CFS requires vehicles be serviced annually & the service logs are audited.
Gut feel is that there are very few who can look at an appliance as a total
system, checking all functions of the truck chassis & pumping system. So the
mechanicals may be well-maintained but the plumbing just waits for something to
fail, at which point the truck goes off-line until it's fixed.
cheers
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a typical departmental approach!
And it's not restricted to CFS either.
the biggest problem is that because you can't tangibly measure savings associated with proper maintanence systems- you can't apparently justify the 'expense' of maintainence programmes for anything other than the base vehicle unit- and at not more than the manufacturers specifications or recommendations....
SAAS has similar issues with light fleet- (yes I know- filtered idiots who drive at stupid speeds...) - where State Fleet refuse to allow anything other than scheduled servicing to occur......and yes considering how some of those clowns drive it's a wonder there hasn't been a catastrophic failure and someone seriously injured before now....
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a typical departmental approach!
And it's not restricted to CFS either.
the biggest problem is that because you can't tangibly measure savings associated with proper maintanence systems- you can't apparently justify the 'expense' of maintainence programmes for anything other than the base vehicle unit- and at not more than the manufacturers specifications or recommendations....
SAAS has similar issues with light fleet- (yes I know- filtered idiots who drive at stupid speeds...) - where State Fleet refuse to allow anything other than scheduled servicing to occur......and yes considering how some of those clowns drive it's a wonder there hasn't been a catastrophic failure and someone seriously injured before now....
Boredy at the rate SAAS have been having prangs lately surprising there are any ambulances left :-P....just lucky Mercedes have a heap of new ones sitting in the yard at Angle Park.
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What's with Angle Park.... Its like a bee hive... where all scrap metal sits there for 2 years then oh "its not scrap metal after all, they havent been delivered"...
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What's with Angle Park.... Its like a bee hive... where all scrap metal sits there for 2 years then oh "its not scrap metal after all, they havent been delivered"...
LOL yes Zippy Mercedes Benz is also at Angle Park, it's all about location,location location :lol:
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lol.....
Interestingly enough though...the stats show that ambo's are more likely to crash at low speed....and usually in reverse!!
....a combination of Gen Y's and a bit too much oestrogen maybe? But thats just my opinion......