Sugar Grove, West Virginia Naval Base FD

[Guest]

The KKK standard is/was a federal ambulance purchasing specification issued by the GSA.  It identified specific equipment, design and construction aspects for ambulances purchased by the federal government.  Non-federal agencies were never required to follow the standard itself, but it was adopted in whole or in part by more than half of the States. 

 

I think at this point it has been retired and as far as I know, the only ambulance manufacturing standard out there right now is NFPA 1917.

 

Right now NFPA 1917 & KKK are both in effect.  KKK will not be renewed in 2015.  On top of that at last look CAAS (Ambulance Operators Assoc Group) is going it alone to do their own standards.

Some agencies and states plan to ignore the NFPA standard and just use the last KKK spec.  That should make it nice and fun!

 

Frankly it's a mess and a half.  My opinion is that NFPA & KKK are useless, too many mandates that address special interests that sit on the committee boards.  Really KKK calls out 10 garbage bags, why? 

There  should be a standard but it should setup minimum safety guidelines that should be much tougher than whats out there right now, but the rest should be up to the agencies.  The new spec will not do

much to improve ambulance safety, many will still rip open like tin cans in a sever accident, but enough of that off my soap box.

 

My comment was based on the government strictly following KKK spec.  I worked with US Army Tank Automotive Command in Warren, MI bidding on the last two bids.  These called out white with orange stripe

and come to think of it they were on Ford F series or equivalent chassis.  Which I guess the C4500 would have met, even if overkill compared to a F350.

 

So I guess there is probably a back story on that ambulance that might be interesting at least to me to know where it came from and why it's painted the way it is.  By the way I think it's pretty sharp looking.

 

Now there is nothing I know of that says they couldn't repaint it or remount if wrecked and waive the KKK paint standard.

 

Kris