# SWP - Personal Vehicle Response (Volunteers)

> Fire Service Safety Management System, version 0.3.3 (2026-10-25). The Human Factor. Document FSSMS-SWP-31.
>
> Canonical: https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/swp-personal-vehicle-response-volunteers
>
> Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 with the Adopting Agency Grant (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)
>
> General information only, not legal, medical or other professional advice. Verify every requirement against the current official text of the law, standards and manufacturer instructions that apply to you. Obtain your own legal review and consult your joint health and safety committee before adopting anything. You adopt, adapt, implement and rely on this material entirely at your own risk and on your own responsibility. Full terms: Terms of Use, thehumanfactor.ca.

> **Warning: Adoption without implementation increases legal exposure**
>
> Adopting this procedure without the training, equipment, supervision, verification and resources to carry it out as written increases municipal and command liability in a regulatory investigation or a fatality inquiry. See [00a Copyright, Licence and Legal Notices](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/copyright-licence-and-legal-notices).

> **Speak up: Speak up**
>
> Any member can decide not to respond, or to stop on the way, and nobody will ask why. Say it plainly to yourself and, if someone is with you, to them: “I’ve been up since four, I’m not driving to this one.” “Road’s glare ice, I’m going to the station, not the scene.” Officers acknowledge a member who arrives late or not at all for a safety reason, thank them, and review for learning how the department can make that choice easier, never for blame. The one debrief question for this task: did anyone drive to this call in a way they would not want their family to see?

## 1. Task and when this applies

Driving a personal vehicle to the station or to a scene in answer to a page or app alert, and parking it when you get there. It applies to every volunteer and paid-on-call member who responds from home, work or anywhere else in a vehicle the department does not own, and to career members who are recalled in personal vehicles. About a quarter of the volunteers who died responding to or returning from a call in the last decade were in privately owned vehicles, and three in four of the responding and returning deaths in the most recent year were volunteers [(USFA, 2025)](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/swp-personal-vehicle-response-volunteers#ref-usfa-2025).

## 2. Hazards

- Collision from speed, from treating the page as a licence to drive differently, from running intersections, and from passing.
- Fatigue: responding after a full work day, at night, or after a previous call.
- Distraction: the pager, the app, the radio, the phone, the mental rehearsal of the call.
- Weather and rural roads: ice, deer, gravel, no shoulders, no lighting.
- Following an apparatus too closely; racing an apparatus to the scene.
- Arriving at a scene and parking in the live lane, between the apparatus and traffic, or blocking the apparatus and the ambulance.
- Stepping out of a personal vehicle onto a roadway without a vest.
- Uninsured use: an insurer who was not told the vehicle is used to respond.
- A courtesy light that other drivers do not understand, or that the member believes confers a right of way it does not.

## 3. Controls in hierarchy order

| Level | Control |
|:---|:---|
| Elimination | Respond to the station, not the scene, except for the roles the department lists; no response at all when fatigued, impaired or unwell; the department’s decision on whether personal vehicle response to scenes is permitted at all ([Policy - Volunteer Members](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/policy-volunteer-members)) |
| Substitution | Ride the apparatus from the station; car-pool from a work site in one vehicle driven by the freshest member |
| Engineering | A vehicle in roadworthy condition; winter tires in season; the pager or app mounted, not held |
| Administrative | This procedure; no statutory exemptions and no right of way, whatever light is on the roof ([J30 Emergency Vehicles, Drivers and Licensing](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/j30-emergency-vehicles-drivers-and-licensing)); the following-distance rule; the parking rule; the insurer notification; annual signed acknowledgement; personal vehicle collisions tracked as program events |
| PPE | Seat belt; a high-visibility vest kept in the vehicle and worn before stepping onto any roadway (CSA Z96:22) |

## 4. Required PPE and equipment

A roadworthy, insured, registered vehicle; a seat belt worn; a Class 2 high-visibility vest in the vehicle; a mounted pager or phone; a flashlight; a courtesy light only where the province permits it and the department has authorized it in writing for that member and vehicle; the member’s bunker gear carried only where the department allows gear in personal vehicles (the contamination control program may prohibit it: [Decontamination and Contamination Control Program](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/decontamination-and-contamination-control-program)).

## 5. Minimum staffing and competencies

Every responding member holds a valid licence for the vehicle, has read and signed this procedure, and renews the acknowledgement annually. No special training is required to drive a personal vehicle lawfully; what the department asks is that members do exactly that.

## 6. Step-by-step procedure

### Before you leave

1.  **Decision point: are you fit to drive?** If you have been awake longer than the department’s limit, have had any alcohol or an impairing drug or medication, are unwell, or are too upset to drive well, do not respond. Tell the officer by radio or app if you can; nobody will ask for a reason ([Policy - Fatigue and Hours of Work](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/policy-fatigue-and-hours-of-work)).
2.  Read the page once. Decide where you are going (station or scene, per the department’s rule for your role) before you move. Mount the pager or phone; you will not touch it again while driving.
3.  Seat belt on. Courtesy light on only if the province permits it and you are authorized; it asks other drivers for courtesy and gives you nothing.

### On the road

4.  You have no exemptions. Obey every speed limit, every signal, every stop sign and every rule of the road as if there were no call. There is no emergency mode in a personal vehicle. The call will be handled by the people who arrive; it will not be handled by you if you crash.
5.  **Decision point: is the road or the weather worse than you expected?** Slow to conditions; go to the station instead of the scene; or stop and let the department know you are not coming. All three are right answers.
6.  Do not follow an apparatus closer than the distance the applicable traffic law sets for other drivers, commonly 150 m ([J30 Emergency Vehicles, Drivers and Licensing](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/j30-emergency-vehicles-drivers-and-licensing)), and never try to keep up with one or pass it. Do not follow another responding member closely either.
7.  Do not use the phone, the radio or the app while moving. If dispatch or the officer needs you, pull over.
8.  Railway crossings, school zones and intersections exactly as on any other drive.

### Arriving at the station

9.  Park in the member parking area, never on the apron, never in front of a bay door, never where an apparatus will need to swing. Walk to the bay with the apparatus doors and the apron in view; the apparatus has the right of way over you.

### Arriving at a scene

10. Park well beyond the incident on the same side, downstream of the last emergency vehicle, off the travelled lane, never between the apparatus and traffic and never blocking the ambulance or a hydrant. On a two-lane road, park where the officer directs or at least 50 m past the scene.
11. Vest on before you open the door. Exit on the side away from traffic. Walk to the officer on the protected side of the apparatus and report in for accountability before you do anything.
12. Your vehicle stays where it is until the officer releases it; it is not moved during the incident to make room.

### After the call

13. Drive home in the same way you drove to the call. If the call was long or hard, say so to the officer before you leave; the department will find you a ride or a place to rest rather than have you drive tired ([Policy - Fatigue and Hours of Work](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/policy-fatigue-and-hours-of-work)).
14. Report any near miss, collision or close call on the way to or from the call before the end of the day; it is reviewed for learning only.

> **Warning: Stop-work triggers**
>
> Do not respond, or stop responding, when: you are too tired, unwell or impaired to drive; the road is ice or visibility is poor and you are not equipped for it; your vehicle has a defect; you find yourself speeding or running a light to “make it”; you cannot park safely at the scene. Arriving late or not at all for a safety reason is never held against a member.

## 7. Emergency and contingency

- **Collision on the way:** stop; you are now a civilian driver at a collision; care for anyone hurt; call 911; tell dispatch you are not coming; the department treats it as a program event and reviews it for learning; statutory reporting if you are injured in the course of duty ([J08 Incident Reporting and Investigation](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/j08-incident-reporting-and-investigation)).
- **Breakdown:** off the road, hazard lights, out of the vehicle on the protected side, tell dispatch.
- **You arrive and the scene is on a highway with no block yet:** stay in your vehicle, well downstream, until an apparatus blocks; do not walk the shoulder in traffic to reach the incident.
- **Another member driving dangerously:** tell the officer afterward; the learning review asks what pressures made that feel necessary, and the department fixes the pressures.

## 8. Documentation and reporting

The signed acknowledgement and the annual renewal are filed with the member’s record; the insurer notification is confirmed in writing once; personal vehicle collisions, near misses and close calls on response are reported on [Form - Vehicle Collision Report](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/form-vehicle-collision-report) or [Form - Near-Miss and Good-Catch Report](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/form-near-miss-and-good-catch-report) and counted in the Apparatus, Driving and Roadway team’s quarterly indicator worksheet as program events; the department records which members are authorized for a courtesy light and for which vehicle.

## 9. Training and review

Delivered in person to every new volunteer and paid-on-call member in the first month, with the conversation about why the department asks this; refreshed annually at a drill night with the year’s incidents (de-identified) and a reminder about fatigue; the signed acknowledgement renewed annually. The Apparatus, Driving and Roadway team reviews this procedure annually and after any personal vehicle collision, with a learning-team session with volunteer members. Sign-off: the program manager; consulted: the JOHSC and the volunteer association.

## 10. Related

- Program: [Apparatus, Driving and Roadway Operations Program](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/apparatus-driving-and-roadway-operations-program) section 5.12.
- Policy: [Policy - Apparatus and Driving](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/policy-apparatus-and-driving); [Policy - Volunteer Members](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/policy-volunteer-members) section 5.7; [Policy - Fatigue and Hours of Work](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/policy-fatigue-and-hours-of-work).
- Procedures: [SWP - Emergency Vehicle Response and Backing](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/swp-emergency-vehicle-response-and-backing); [SWP - Roadway Incident Scene Blocking](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/swp-roadway-incident-scene-blocking).
- Forms: [Form - Vehicle Collision Report](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/form-vehicle-collision-report); [Form - Near-Miss and Good-Catch Report](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/form-near-miss-and-good-catch-report).

> **Note: Customize**
>
> Decide and record: whether personal vehicle response to scenes is permitted at all, and for which roles (many departments allow it only for officers and only on certain calls); the awake-hours limit; whether the province permits a courtesy light and the department’s authorization process; what insurance the department provides and what it requires of the member; whether bunker gear may be carried in a personal vehicle; the scene parking distance. Check the courtesy light, following distance and exemption rules for your province or territory in [J30 Emergency Vehicles, Drivers and Licensing](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/j30-emergency-vehicles-drivers-and-licensing).

> **Tip: Volunteer and composite departments**
>
> This is the single most important procedure a volunteer department owns, because the drive is where volunteers die. Deliver it as a conversation, sign it as a commitment, and have the chief say out loud that a member who stays home because they are too tired has done the right thing.

## Jurisdiction requirements

This chapter relies on the following legal requirements, which differ by province and territory. Check your jurisdiction’s section on each topic page before adopting it.

| Topic | What to check in your jurisdiction | Page |
|:---|:---|:---|
| Incident Reporting and Investigation | Which injuries in the course of duty must be reported to the regulator and the compensation board, and how fast | [J08 Incident Reporting and Investigation](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/j08-incident-reporting-and-investigation) |
| Volunteer Firefighters | Whether volunteers count as workers under the OHS statute and are covered by workers’ compensation while responding in their own vehicles | [J11 Volunteer Firefighters](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/j11-volunteer-firefighters) |
| Firefighter PPE and Protective Equipment | The general PPE duty, which covers the high-visibility vest and any gear a member wears on arriving at a scene | [J13 Firefighter PPE and Protective Equipment](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/j13-firefighter-ppe-and-protective-equipment) |
| Emergency Vehicles, Drivers and Licensing | Whether a personal vehicle may carry a courtesy (green) light and what it allows, the exemptions a personal vehicle does not have, the following distance and the move-over rule | [J30 Emergency Vehicles, Drivers and Licensing](https://thehumanfactor.ca/library/fire-service-safety/j30-emergency-vehicles-drivers-and-licensing) |

## References

CSA Group. (2022). *CSA Z96:22, High-visibility safety apparel* (4th ed.). <https://www.csagroup.org/store/product/CSA%20Z96:22/>

United States Fire Administration \[USFA\]. (2025). *Firefighter fatalities in the United States in 2024*. Federal Emergency Management Agency. <https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/publications/firefighter-fatalities-2024.pdf>