3 ms·

Ugh. Let's privatize the fire departments next.

• rdl 13y ago
  Private and volunteer fire departments actually work really well, but that's mainly because people genuinely want to be firefighters -- it's a fairly unambiguously good thing, everyone is always happier when they show up, and they tend to get more women than virtually any other blue-collar profession (a stereotype, but from interacting with FD people, it's pretty much borne out by experience.) It doesn't work as well in big cities, and doesn't work in a place like SF because SFFD also does all the EMS calls (which tend to suck, and require much more hours of actual work, training, etc.). A rural or suburban volunteer or private fire department is fine, much more so than privatizing police forces.
  • taybin 13y ago
    In NYC, they had to take over the private fire departments since multiple ones would show up and fight each other over who had the right to get the money from fighting the fire. It was a mess.