Emergency Services

Bored with the same old training year after year? Trying to provide new and challenging training for your employees? How about all those County employees who must drive in a variety of situations ranging from snowplowing to police pursuits? How do you effectively provide driver training without putting employees and equipment at risk yet still have them experience real life driving conditions?

The Sauk County Risk Management Department is constantly addressing these types of questions to assure that employees keep safety at the top of the list. Specifically, Sauk County has been looking for ways to improve their driver training program for several years. With such a large number of employees traveling during the worst conditions and in the most dangerous situations, Sauk County has found a way to better prepare its employees for these situations by allowing them to drive on icy roads, plow snow in blizzard like conditions and participate in police pursuits and never leave the training room!

In January of 2006, MRPI (L-3 Communications) was invited to the Highway Commissioners Winter Convention to demonstrate their emergency services driving simulator. Transportation and Parks/Property and Insurance committee Chairman, Virgil Hartje and Highway Commissioner, Steve Muchow saw the demonstration and were so impressed with the potential of the simulator that Safety/Risk Manager, Carl Gruber was asked to drop by the convention to evaluate this product. Carl then spent the next several months looking into this equipment and evaluating the pros and cons of the simulator to determine if such a training tool would benefit Sauk County . After presenting his findings to the Property & Insurance, Transportation & Parks and Law Enforcement Committees and ultimately to the full County Board on two different occasions the County Board approved the purchase in July 2006. “ Even better, the purchase was made using dollars from the County's Self Insurance Fund which is supported by savings received from returns (dividends) gained from our insurance programs. These savings are directly related to keeping our losses at a minimum”, stated Gruber.

The great thing about this equipment is that the simulator allows us to produce a variety of situations on the road which otherwise would not be possible, such as icy roads, snow storms, animals running in to the road or other drivers performing unsafe driving acts and again doing this all from a controlled environment. Employees driving ambulances, fire trucks, police squads and snow plow drivers can gain valuable experience with reality based equipment in a variety of conditions while not being put in harms way. Simulations can include the weather conditions (snow, fog, rain, ice, wind, etc., vehicle problems (blown tire, brake failure, etc) or time of day scenarios. The simulator contains several hundred pre-written scenarios such as snowplowing on a highway, interstate or in town; felony or violation pursuits; obstacle courses; collision avoidance courses, intersection problems; and rural suburban or freeway courses. The users can also create their own scenario to simulate problems that have frequently been encountered.

Presently, Gruber is working with numerous agencies in Sauk County on developing classroom and simulator courses. In addition to all of the above the class size is kept to 8 – 10 students per session to maximize the learning experience. Classes begin with typical classroom activities, 30 to 40 minutes in length, during which students review policies that pertain to the class as well as a short test. Each student is then allowed to perform on 2-3 different scenarios to acclimate them to the simulator. The idea is that each class will build a foundation for the next class, with the intent to increase their skill level and defensive driving techniques for the situations they may encounter on their job. Depending on the number of departments that take advantage of the simulator, each department should be able to use the simulator at least 3 -4 times a year.

In addition to all of these benefits there are more: This equipment is not limited to being used during the daytime, it is something that can be utilized during an evening or night shift which eliminates the need to pay overtime. Finally, each employee that participates in a class has a record that is kept on the simulator which will evaluate how the driver did in each scenario including violations, hard braking, speeding, etc.

Thus far Sauk County has been able to train about 100 employees with the simulator and the response from employees has been overwhelmingly favorable. From the employee who has been here for less than a year to those with over 30 years of experience, this training tool is receiving nothing but five stars for its benefits to the employee.

Sauk County is offering the use of the simulator to outside agencies for a nominal fee.

Each session is 2 hours in length. Class size is limited to 8 people minimum and 12 people maximum.

• In-county fee is $10.00 per person
• Out-of-county fee is $20.00 per person.

If you are interested contact: