It is green, has blue with white stripes and may drive with blue flashing lights and siren. It is not a new figure from PAW Patrol, but the new car from the Brabant-Noord Safety Region. In addition to the ‘normal’ emergency services, such as the police, fire brigade, ambulance and Rijkswaterstaat, you can now also encounter these green vehicles on the road in the north of our province.
The chance that you have already spotted one of the two green cars in the wild is not that great: in the north of Brabant, Safety Region employees have only been driving them since Tuesday, and in South-East Brabant there has been one for six months. such a green car around.
The Population Care Officer and the so-called CoPI Communications Advisor drive the cars. These are employees of the Safety Region who work together with the emergency services during major fires, disasters or a crisis. Among other things, they ensure that people in the vicinity of a major fire or disaster can be quickly informed about what is going on.
“Now they can avoid traffic jams and drive quickly from one side of the province to the other.”
The Safety Region employees already had cars without flashing lights and sirens, but they actually belonged to the fire brigade. “And because our people are not formally from the fire brigade, that was actually not correct,” says Christel Verschuren, crisis communications advisor at the Brabant-Noord Safety Region. “But they must be able to drive recognizable on the road towards a major fire or disaster, an average civilian car is kept away from there.”
The old cars had no flashing lights or sirens. “Now they can avoid traffic jams and drive quickly from one side of the province to the other. If you have to get from Heusden to Boxmeer, that is quite a distance.”
This can be done faster with flashing lights and sirens, Verschuren explains. “There must be an ‘urgent task’, as stated in the law. So we only drive with signaling if there is a necessity.”
“Employees use it to go to work, but also do their shopping with the car.”
The thirteen employees of the Brabant-Noord Safety Region have all undergone training to be allowed to drive with flashing lights and sirens. “Everyone who drives around in them has a 24-hour picket shift. So the cars are constantly driving around. Employees use them to go to work, but also do their shopping with the car. Then they can a la minute away.”
The cars are not only green on the outside: they are 100 percent electric.
These vehicles may drive with flashing lights and sirens
- Police
- Ambulance
- Fire brigade
- Red Cross
- Sanquin Foundation for blood transport
- ProRail in the event of an accident on the track
- The safety regions
- National Operational Coordination Center of the Ministry of Security and Justice
- Judicial Institutions Service
- Organ center, for emergency transport of transplant teams
- Rescue squads
- Royal Military Police
- Military medical service
- Corporate security from TATA Steel
- Dutch Forensic Institute
- The explosive ordnance disposal services
- Road inspectors from Rijkswaterstaat