Parking by a fire hydrant is stupid. You should never do it, because firefighters need access to water. If you do, they will happily smash through your car to hook up their hoses, and they won’t be sorry. That much is fair. But what happens if you park kinda sorta near a hydrant?
That case recently came to pass in New York earlier this month. As posted to Twitter by FearedBuck, we see a vehicle parked close to a hydrant as a fire crew rolls in. One of the firefighters busies himself with hooking the truck up to the hydrant, and the Honda in the way gets the business. The windows are smashed, the hose is fed through the cabin, and the truck is duly hooked up to the water supply.
The video has spawned a flurry of commentary, with posters taking two sides. Some claim the firefighters were out of pocket, alleging there was no need to smash the vehicle at all. Others stated that fire crews don’t have time to muck about with cars in their way, and that the action was utterly justified. Let’s take a look at the footage—and at the history of this driver—and see what’s what. Stick around for the twist.
someone parked right beside a fire hydrant & got their car window smashed ????????pic.twitter.com/FW2N6bTbdH
— FearBuck (@FearedBuck) July 11, 2024
Fair, or Unfair?
From the drop, let’s get this straight. This Honda is undeniably parked illegally. New York regulations state that vehicles must be more parked more than 15 feet away from a hydrant. It appears the owner may have assumed the bollards by the hydrant marked out the forbidden area, but that’s not the case. You may not park in a 15-foot zone on either side of the hydrant.
However, since the vehicle wasn’t parked right next to the hydrant, that pushed many to question the actions of the crew in the video. Suggestions were that the fire truck could have moved forwards or backwards, and the hose could have been laid in front of or behind the car. Without a full view of the area, though, it’s hard to support this assumption. We don’t know the traffic or road conditions at the time, or what other fire appliances were in the area. But taking a look at the area, it’s tight.
Others suggested the hose could have been passed over the vehicle. To an extent, this may be true. However, it’s probably actually a worse idea for several reasons, if it would be allowed at all. For one, the fire hose is safest sitting on the ground.
Having the hose lofted over a vehicle would present a much higher risk to crews in the area. You can’t have a high-pressure hose just flopping around all over the place, and there’s a chance the crew would get hung up on the hose or even trip over it.
Car's windows getting smashed for parking near water hydrant pic.twitter.com/XaiwR1c5VH
— Visual feast (@visualfeastwang) July 10, 2024
Plus, hanging the hose over the car would maybe cause more damage? Getting a couple of windows replaced isn’t that hard. In contrast, a heavy-duty firehose would likely scuff up or damage a lot of paintwork which would possibly require expensive bodywork to rectify.
The fact is that a fire hose is not like a garden hose you might have at home. It’s a heavy piece of equipment, with a 5-inch hose capable of flowing 2000 gallons of water a minute. These hoses are not excessively long, and you can’t just lay them willy-nilly. A fire truck needs a clear run to the hydrant.
Wait. Say That Again?
It’s easy to be sympathetic to the driver. They’d have returned to their car only to find their windows smashed and the interior full of glass. But hold that thought.
Run the driver’s license plate through a parking violation query with the city of New York. You’ll find something interesting. They’ve racked up a total of $12,078 in parking fines and camera violations in the last three years.
You can see 17 of the fines here, but there are 94 fines in total, with the most recent issued on the 1st of July, 2024. The ticket asserts the vehicle was parked within 1 foot of the hydrant seen in this video. For their trouble, the driver was fined $115.
Incidentally, it’s apparently the 34th time they’ve been ticketed for parking in front of a hydrant. Getting your car smashed once in 34 illegal parks… those aren’t great odds.
One suspects the owner doesn’t plan to pay this one. Just as they’ve ignored paying so many tickets before. Oh, and they’re also apparently partial to speeding in school zones.
It’s easy to say that the firefighter in the video saw a car parked illegally, and saw an opportunity for some cathartic destruction. I wouldn’t call that fair. The city requires people to park away from hydrants for good reason. Emergency crews don’t have time to try and work around illegally parked cars. The Honda should never have been there in the first place. The fact this is apparently a regular pattern of behavior for this driver just seals the deal.
[Ed note: David and I are sitting here and don’t necessarily agree. David thinks it was a touch too far as it didn’t seem like the car was blocking the hydrant. But this is my town. You get 34 fire hydrant tickets you have severely fucked around and you have now found out. – MH]
Image credits: Visual feast and FearBuck via Twitter video screenshot, Google Maps via screenshot, City of New York via screenshot
Finally, something I’m almost qualified to answer.
1st- been on FDNY for 25 years
2nd -Engine Chauffeur (FDNY term for guy who drives the rig)for 10 years
3rd- I was at this job.
So, we have two things going on here
1st and foremost is hooking up to a hydrant. Usually if your first due, it needs to be as fast and efficient as possible, if I was the boss and I came out of a building and saw this, I would lose my mind. As far as operationally, this was a shit show. You could’ve hooked up faster by laying the hose right over the hood and you would’ve been fine, it also would’ve taken half the time. Chauffeur and crew went far out of their way to break the windows. Lets not even talk about a disgruntled owner coming in and fucking with your supply line because you destroyed his car.
2nd is that New York City is full of these assholes who park right on the hydrant. Its an issue and we dont seem to have enough resources to tow cars that deserve this. (Hell, it took two hours to get cars towed that were right in front of the fire building) So do I agree with this owners car getting busted up….no. Am I upset that some firemen got to live out some masturbatory Backdraft fantasy….Once again no.
I work with a former firefighter and he said that getting to smash the windows out of a car was like, THE universal desire of everyone he worked with. Himself included.
Alas, he never got the chance during his tenure.
Seemed like breaking that window took forever and one of those tiny hammers people keep in their cars to smash the window and swim out would have been WAY more efficient. Guessing firefighters don’t keep tiny hammers on their rig.
Couple of reasons it took so long. The first is that the tool he is using is a custodian wrench, which is a specialized tool for opening multiple types of hydrants. Not customarily used for venting car windows. The second is that some passenger cars no longer have normal side windows, they are laminated, just like the front windshield. This makes them a pain in the ass to break open. It doesn’t shatter like they used to, you almost have to either peel them back or punch through.
Indeed this is laminated glass – I was impressed that a Honda would have this. Makes it much easier when the vandals break into your car (that was parked in front of the police station) to steal your sunglasses and ice cream money. The tempered glass breaks into thousands of small pieces that you can never fully get rid of. I guess tempered glass is usually more expensive than laminated glass, so maybe this is a feature for lower priced cars – can you use untempered door glass if you laminate it??
I believe laminated glass is being used on newer cars for NVH reasons.
Thanks for replying 🙂
I feel like an important lesson was learned that day by the car owner, and they serve as a warning for the next asshole who decides their convenience is more important than FDNY putting out a fire. Thanks for everything you do for all of us in NYC.
I’m glad my first thought seems to be the correct one – this took longer to do for no good reason. Hooking the hose up fast should have been the priority.
Once the fire is out, sure. Drag the metal end of the hose across the hood. Maybe there’s an oopsie and it hits the windshield.
There’s no need to be careful of property that shouldn’t be there, but don’t go out of your way and slow down the process to cause damage.
Watching the video it didn’t seem to slow them down at all. As window smasher was hooking up to the hydrant the other fire fighter was still unrolling the rest of the feeder line.
I’m just gonna go ahead and stop thinking about what I think and just agree with the one guy in the room whose credentials and authority on the matter seem unimpeachable. Thanks for your thoughts and for your service. Be safe out there.
My only complaint is they broke the wrong window. They needed to do the windshield, as that would have been a more direct line from the hydrant.
As I understand it, the 15 feet from a hydrant doesn’t only apply fire and aft of it, it’s in a full circle. I remember reading about an instance where someone was ticketed for parking across the street, on a very narrow street.
Which does make some sense, since room to work is room to work.
Did they need to break the windows to get to the hydrant? Maybe not.
Should they have? Yes. Screw people who park in front of hydrants, regardless of how many parking tickets they have.
I’m only wondering why this car hasn’t been booted or impounded yet.
it’s a cop or someone cop adjacent absolutely
In which case the firefighters breaking the windows would make even more sense. Interagency rivalries can be weird.
As mentioned – “Backdraft” fantasy seems to be a thing. Blast, even that movie got old.
Seems like they could make this much less common by painting the curb red for the 15′ they want clear. I know not to block hydrants but I’d never heard they require you to stay 15′ away. Though maybe thats a state by state thing.
In NYC where this happened, there’s no parking for 15′ on either side of the hydrant, IIRC because that’s to make space for the fire engine to park there.
The city doesn’t need to paint the curb red because that’s the kind of info that NYS drivers would know from a) the driver license exam or b) where it says what you did wrong the first time you get ticketed.
Beyond that, curbs would also need to be regularly re-painted from the wear and tear from the passing seasons, which would be prohibitively expensive to do as there are 170,000 hydrants in NYC.
Paint would be helpful because 1) people don’t carry tape measures with them, 2) people might not remember whether it’s 5ft, 10ft, 15ft, 15 yards, etc. years after their drivers’ test, 3) is that 15 feet along the curb from the centerline of the hydrant or 15 feet from the nearest edge of the hydrant on the diagonal or 15 feet from the bollard? That could be 1-2 feet different depending on how they measure if they are ticketing edge cases.
Most people do most of their driving in their own state, and as 15 feet is the rule statewide, it’s not really an excuse to say you forgot. Any hydrant that the 20-something million NY people park next to on a daily basis is subject to the same restriction. If you’re from out of state, sure, but by the time you have NYS plates on your car, you should know.
If you really don’t want to shell out for an inexpensive tape measure to be certain about it, you can also find ways to estimate. How many of your steides or how many of your shoes, end to end, measure 15′? How many divisions of the sidewalk does it take? Forgoing all of that, an average 184″ compact sedan like a Jetta is just over 15′, so if you can imagine one could fit between your car and any part of the hydrant, you’re good.
I’ve been street parking multiple cars in NYC for years without a single hydrant ticket. It’s not hard to do. To park this close to a hydrant is either from laziness or complete disregard for others.
I seriously cannot believe that people are siding with the scofflaw that parks in front of a hydrant. This isn’t a 30 second run inside the bodega so parking illegally, while both annoying and illegal, isn’t that much of a deal. This is some entitled a-hole who regularly parks illegally. NYFD should have busted out all of his windows; they used restraint in only busting out 2.
Why are you acting like people can’t think that the firefighter is a dick, and that the car parker is a dick?
Like, I’ve got zero problem if a firefighter has to break windows to actually get their job done effectively. But I’m not cool if they spend more time busting out windows when it would have been faster and easier to just lay the hose on the hood. That’s not a defense of the asshole car parker, it’s common sense.
Seems the chauffeur re-positioned his rig later in the job.
https://www.tiktok.com/@avionne1015/video/7390475645521759518
The firemen were on a power trip. Yes the car was illegally parked, but the hydrant wasn’t blocked.
If the hose is less than an optimal U shape the car disrupted the flow. Going through the car was both more efficient and more satisfying. Which I’m okay with.
You didn’t look at the picture did you? Going through the car made the hose routing worse.
Watched the video and looked at the picture(s), I disagree with your assessment.
Routing it over the hood would have been quicker and a better line.