Watch Out in '08: You Could be Being Watched

My caution message to you at the end of this year is "watch out" — literally. Cameras are out there in every shape and form; people are filming, people are watching, no one is filtering well, and no one knows how this information should be controlled or if it can be controlled.

No one knows how the helmet-cam can work for or against you in court. Nowadays, there are cameras in apparatus, there are cameras on helmets and there are cameras in police car trunks.  

Sometimes the police, who have been at it a lot longer than us, can still avoid prosecution even though the tape looks bad. A video cannot tell the entire story. The video is not the true, official, historical record of the event. However, when my grandmother watches the six o'clock news she wants to know how those babies died while the firemen werejust sitting on their haunches in the front yard. She, still after explanation, does not get what a flashover or a RIT is.

My caution to you at the end of this year is to slow down. The technology is moving faster than our ability to understand it and faster than our ability to incorporate it into our lives in meaningful and productive ways.

Slow down, because what looks like a prank in the station looks like hazing on YouTube and may look like a pattern of bad behavior in a civil court. Who knows? I don't.

Slow down, because on the video it looks like you are driving faster than you actually are. Slow down, because on the video a close call looks even closer than usual. Just be careful and slow down.

We are all human and sometimes we forget. I may not live in an all-glass house, but at least one of the sides is glass. We have all made mistakes, weakening our credibility when begging caution in a dangerous age. But my mistakes not withstanding, I wonder all the time what the future of the fire service looks like and now I get to see it on YouTube. Be careful — Happy Holidays.