Chuck, i feel your input weights quite much atleast in my suggestion, since you are the insim coder after all.
What is your personal opinion/view in the subject about [MED] & [RES] units?
And what is your point of view from the insim perspective? Is it do-able?
Would it cause alot of problems or other things ex. ex..?
And if you have negative thought's about the whole idea, with all sharing same call or seperate, please share why you think so. Thanks!
Well, I do generally appreciate role-play. Some ideas have developed a bit more in the background, some haven't or simply got stuck in discussions. The key questions are rather political than technical, like sirens or not, speeding or not, etc. One should also not forget those who don't believe much in those roles, for instance if you call a tow and after 5 minutes you find yourself surrounded by MEDs, RESes, Firebrigade, CNN reporters and snack stands, but not a single one actually came to help you.
One thing that will most likely come in future is that roles (tow/med/...) will be linked with separate, revocable, rights (or licenses) (similar to cop-rights) and you will be required to do some sort of online-test for each of them to be allowed to carry that particular tag. Mainly, to ensure that people playing as tow, med and what else to come, know the rules and techniques to play that role.
(2012-10-08 13:24)Chuck Wrote: [ -> ]One thing that will most likely come in future is that roles (tow/med/...) will be linked with separate, revocable, rights (or licenses) (similar to cop-rights) and you will be required to do some sort of online-test for each of them to be allowed to carry that particular tag. Mainly, to ensure that people playing as tow, med and what else to come, know the rules and techniques to play that role.
I really like this idea, and i could really see it funtional on many plans.
Although, i'm unsure about implementing this along with cop training, sure it will work but some parts need to be re-done along with the process. And does the trainers have enough time and interest in expanding to another division. And what does the rest of the TC team and members of the community think about it?
(2012-10-08 13:24)Chuck Wrote: [ -> ]One thing that will most likely come in future is that roles (tow/med/...) will be linked with separate, revocable, rights (or licenses) (similar to cop-rights) and you will be required to do some sort of online-test for each of them to be allowed to carry that particular tag. Mainly, to ensure that people playing as tow, med and what else to come, know the rules and techniques to play that role.
(2012-10-08 06:11)Chuck Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry, slightly OT but nevertheless. Why is there a "Lights only" ? I mean does such a vehicle have priority over other traffic or not? Standing in a traffic-light-queue with lights on waiting for green seems pointless.
Sirens were invented to warn others which are not in the direct view of such a vehicle, for instance at crossings or intersections, but approaching a crossing with lights but not sirens would only cause mayhem there and is extremely dangerous for everyone involved.
In Denmark at least, lights only has same priority over other traffic as lights and siren. Lights only in an ambulance vehicle is usually used when a patient isnt in a critical condition and dont need the stress a siren can make or at night when there are little to none traffic, to avoid unnecessary noise while people are sleeping, etc.
It's somewhat similar in the UK, used for lower priority stuff where speed isn't critical, for example if someone's ill enough to need hospital, but stable and not in pain - often when it has been called by a doctor. They do still have traffic priority, but aren't going to be blasting through junctions and red lights and will be driving with much more caution.
On Lights & Siren, the siren is often turned off when it's not needed - when there's light/no traffic on an open road and no junctions - but that does depend somewhat on how critical the response is; first responder paramedic cars tend to be driving so fast they never turn the siren off.
That however is not quite what I meant, sure in the video they're not using the siren because the current traffic situation does not require it in that very moment, but the difference is whether they MAY use it if necessary or not.
I've been reading a lot on this, at least the legal situation in Germany. If anyone is interested:
There exist two different kind of rights, the official German terms are not easy to translate but I will try,
1. Special rights, which grants (carefully) violating the road laws (ie speeding, wrong way, parking etc)
This one may be used silently, even in unmarked cars, there exists a directive though that orders the usage of blue lights if the vehicle is equipped.
2. "Right of a free road"
This one must be claimed by the usage of both sirens and blue lights at a time.
Other cars and whatever is on the road must immediately clear the road.
So, as for the view of a random civilian: Blue lights mean nothing but "caution" or "I may drive faster than you " or simply "I've got a blue light". Only Siren + blue lights together means "get off the road".
However, both of these "rights" do usually apply to ambulances as they wouldn't make much sense separated. I mean a car with blue lights but without siren, that takes part in the road traffic like any other vehicle would only distract and confuse others, and probably looks retarded too.
Very true. Though at the moment with the InSim changes, there's only one type of accident that [MED]s are called to, requiring only one type of response, really.
Though on the sense of the lower priority response, I always figured it would be the sort of situation where you have lights on the entire route, use siren as warning -- speeding is permitted, of course, but generally when it's clear. Still need to take caution around traffic and intersections and use siren at those times, no point risking an accident for a low-priority call.
To avoid any confusions, i'll be delighted to hear more details around it.