Majority of car owners around the world sometimes think that they can park their car anywhere they deem fit just because it is “their” car. Unfortunately, there are so many wrong places a cautious motorist should never park his/her car and the front of a fire hydrant is one of such places.
Yes, it doesn’t matter if there is no emergency as of the time you want to park your car; it is just wrong and a terrible idea to leave one’s car parked in front of a fire hydrant. Keep reading to find out why.
Firefighters usually smash the windows of any car parked in front of a fire hydrant to get a hose through it during emergencies
During a recent fire emergency in New York City, USA – the firefighting department had to unavoidably break the windows of a 2005 BMW 5-Series sedan just to get “free flow” of water from a fire hydrant which it was blocked due to the way the car was parked.
The incident reportedly occurred around 3.30 am on a Friday morning and the owner of the car was nowhere in sight during the emergency. However, press reports later stated that the owner of the car claimed innocence and rather explained that the car broke down 4 days before the incident and he didn’t notice it was blocking a fire hydrant when he left it there.
Below is the original Twitter post confirming the incident;
Firefighters smash windows of BMW parked in front of hydrant https://t.co/dcFyO877vK pic.twitter.com/jkxV7qxgII
— New York Post (@nypost) August 15, 2020
Now, the big question is: why can’t the firefighters just pass the hose through the bonnet of the car to access the fire hydrant? Well, this is the main reason we are publishing this post to educate every “unaware” car owner.
According to expert firefighters, the hose which is usually connected to a fire hydrant to draw water during emergency “fire” situations is best to not be bent in any form because that would reduce the rate at which water passes through the hose.
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Firefighting is not an easy task and “speed” is usually one factor that is never taken for granted during fire emergencies. So, this is the reason why the firefighters are always forced to smash the windows of any car that is blocking a fire hydrant in order to pass their hose through the car directly to avoid any nasty “kink” in the hose. Beware!
Below is also a helpful video explaining this driving precaution;
NEVER BLOCK A FIRE HYDRANT - I WARNED YOU
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