UPDATED – Communicating with the public: Fire department Facebook rant chews out 'asshole' drivers. We would all like to do this, but should we?

Read entire (unedited) Ladd Fire Department post from August 3

(UPDATE – As one of our readers pointed out this apparently was not some renegade rant by a firefighter. Chief B.J. Liebe was driving the utility truck with Lt. Dan Englehaupt taking the pictures and posting on Facebook. The chief chimed in with his own comments. Responding to one suggestion that they run the drivers into a ditch Chief Liebe replied, "Bob that may or may not have happened 😉". And to another who thought they should have taken down tag numbers the chief indicated that wasn't practical and added, "Besides what r police gonna do, give them a fine? What they need is a punch in the head and even if the police would like to they can't". And to top it off they were able to parlay this into positive coverage in the local press. Click here.)

This could very well be my own fault. Online and in my presentations the last year or so (at FRI in Atlanta August 26 and with Go Forward Training October 21-23 in St. Charles, Missouri) I have been encouraging fire departments to tell their own stories via the Internet and particularly social media. The idea is to communicate directly with your stakeholders on a daily basis and in the process help build your image in the community. You no longer have to rely solely on traditional news media to get the word out. You can be a valued and trusted source of information for your citizens.

From what I can see the Ladd Fire Department in Illinois has been doing just that with the department's Facebook page. There is a lot of information and pictures posted about incidents, fundraising, community events and timely safety information like storm warnings. I see it as a smart way to connect with the people they serve. I will probably use the page as an example in future talks.

But my attention (and the attention of some others like Jalopnik.com) has been drawn to one safety tip that was posted August 3. It is a reminder to motorists not to make u-turns on Interstate highways and travel down the shoulder of the road to get out of a traffic jam without the direction of law enforcement, fire and EMS. The message is an important one for everyone's safety and well being. The form the message took is another story.

The posting is a rant by a firefighter who had been in a utility vehicle traveling with a chief officer to the scene of a wreck involving two tractor trailers. About four miles from the scene they encountered people driving on the shoulder in the opposite direction. The firefighter made it clear how selfish those drivers were. Here are two excerpts:

At NO POINT, while stuck in traffic because of someone else's unfortunate situation, is it considered acceptable or advisable to TURN AROUND AND COME THE OPPOSITE WAY UP THE SHOULDER OF AN INTERSTATE HIGHWAY. Your s#$& is not that important to us unless your life is in danger, your house is on fire or if you yourself are on fire. What you do is put our lives in danger. Your hair appointment, sales appointment, shower after work, really is not that important when you think about just exactly why you are sitting in traffic.

When you take it upon yourself to do s#$& like this picture shows, you do nothing but get in the way of getting help to them, and an earful from us. What if your loved one was the one needing us, needing help or assistance? Think people, don't be an asshole!

(NOTE – Those are my edits on the common four-letter word used twice in the rant. It doesn't offend me, but I know it offends some of our readers as I am sure the word "asshole" will).

There is no doubt what this firefighter had to say about the people driving on our roads around emergency scenes and emergency vehicles is something most of us would like to be able to say. My question is should have it been done in that manner?

I actually can see two sides to this story. There is so much sameness out there and so many messages it is hard to get through with something important. You may need to hit people over the head to actually get their attention (you certainly can't do it with a siren and flashing lights). In this case, a firefighter using Facebook to cuss out motorists doing wrong gets your attention. It is kind of like being a child with parents who never say bad words suddenly spouting expletives at you when you screwed up in a big way. It certainly gets your attention.

To me it's similar to the hilarious and effective public service announcement from the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania (below) who made it clear his city isn't going to take any crap from motorists who park in bicycle lanes. While I know they aren't going to crush my car, if I lived there I doubt I would be parking in any bike lanes (thanks to Eric Lamar who posted this recently in Firegeezer). 

That said, do you really want an official message from the fire department to include the words s#$& and asshole? I know those words have become less and less a big deal in our society. (Note – For the record, none of the 30 comments on the Facebook page complain about the rant and 53 people like it.) 

And do you think chastising them rather profanely is an effective way to reach the citizens and try to correct the stupid things they do? 

Is what you read here any different than the Orange County, Florida lieutenant who shot the bird at a motorist and was demoted (video below)?

The phone lines are now open. Let us know what you think. Just don't be an asshole and use any four-letter words if your want your comment to be posted.