Boston EMS

[edburke]

Ed,


This ambulance is different in some ways, including the chassis and new lettering/striping, and no cab mounted lightbar. Are there new people on the spec committee? Any particular reasons for going away from the Terrastar and the larger module?


Also, I guess the era of the push bumpers are over. Out of curiosity, did it have to do with cost, or compatibility with airbag sensors, etc?

 

The lettering/striping is a modernized version of the old paint scheme.  Flip back through the pages of this thread and you'll see what I mean.  The lightbar was an unnecessary expense, as these things throw as much, if not more light than the GMC/Internationals-they saved about $40,000 by removing the lightbars from the order.  It is 50/50 as far as the rank and file goes on this move, so you may see them back.  The Terrastar was the worst chassis we ever had, uncomfortable for the crew, constantly in for service, etc.  There are GMCs that are still in the fleet as spares that are outlasting the Internationals.  The truck committee that spec'ed these trucks was a combination of new and old, and with the uncomfortable seats in the Internationals, they claim that they "found the most comfortable seats possible and built an ambulance around them."  They looked at other medium duty trucks, but the ride in all of them was similar to the Internationals, so they started looking at smaller chassis.  They put a lot of work and thought into the trucks, and I think we're going to be happy with the result.  I don't know what happened with the bully bumpers-there was a delay in the development of the model for the Terrastar and it just seemed to be one of those things that passed quietly into the night.