Road Incidents Involving Selected Categoriesof Emergency Vehicles as a Special Type of Threat to Road Safety

Collisions and accidents involving emergency vehicles are an important element of road accidentsin the world in the context of road safety. At the same time, there are no precise data that wouldallow assessing this phenomenon. The number of events, their social and economic costs havea dramatic impact on the functioning of, among others, emergency medical services and the abilityof the state to provide emergency services to citizens at the appropriate level. Economic changesmean that the labour market for drivers of emergency vehicles undergoes changes that may affectthe quality of human resources. Consequently, it is crucial to propose ways of achieving andmaintaining an appropriate level of competence and skills of drivers of emergency vehicles. A fullanalysis of the risk related to this area requires knowledge of the current state, trends, changesand the severity of the problems, so that the proposed methods are economically justified andallow minimising the risk related to road incidents that involve “non-police” emergency vehiclesto an acceptable level. The article will present the results of research aimed at understanding thecurrent state of road safety related to road incidents involving “non-police” emergency vehicles.An attempt was made at identifying trends and changes in this area as well as ways to improve thecompetences of emergency vehicle drivers.