You’ve probably seen public service announcements or roadside dot matrix signs imploring you to slow down in work zones. First responders don’t usually get that, although one would think the flashing lights on their vehicles would serve as a clue to slow down. The Colorado Department of Transportation has a better solution: big Ford trucks.
According to a local news report, CDOT is now deploying “crash protection trucks” on highways in the Denver metro area to protect first responders at roadside emergency sites and reduce secondary crashes from drivers hitting vehicles stopped on the side of the road. Sporting neon liveries that are the vehicular equivalent of a high-visibility vest, the Ford Super Duty trucks have rear-facing illuminated arrows signaling drivers to move over, something that’s already used in work zones around the country.
If that doesn’t work, the trucks also have attenuators, basically reinforced bumpers designed to absorb as much of the impact as possible if a driver doesn’t use their eyes. These are also used by roadwork crews, usually on the tail vehicle when a construction zone is being set up or during roadside mowing, to provide an extra layer of protection against crashes.
The Colorado crash protection trucks will first be deployed on Interstate 25, Interstate 225, and Interstate 70 around Denver, before being deployed to other parts of the state, according to the report. They’re already proving their usefulness. On Oct. 10, a driver about to enter the scene of a crash instead hit one of the trucks, CDOT executive director Shoshana Lew told reporters, noting that the truck “worked exactly how it was designed and protected our first responders tending to the scene.”
One would think that emergency vehicles’ flashing lights would be enough to get drivers’ attention, but it’s hard to overestimate the human capacity for incompetence behind the wheel. And while the need to deploy what are essentially mobile crash barriers doesn’t speak well of the abilities of human drivers, stopped emergency vehicles have also proved challenging for the automated systems that are supposed to replace us.
So while highly specialized vehicles are always cool, Colorado’s crash trucks are even cooler because they’re doing a very important job.
