Safety Task Force
STF Organization
The STF in both Canada and the US is organized into geographic zones. The zone concept was utilized to provide for (1) the widest possible participation and education of the BLE membership in accident cause finding procedures, (2) decrease response time in getting on scene at an accident, and (3) reduce the cost of running the program while still providing quality service to the membership.
In the U.S., the STF is organized into two geographic zones, with a Primary Response Team and a Secondary Response Team. The states within each zone are as follows:
In order to minimize response time, the STF members in the zone where the accident occurs will be called first. In some cases, however, it may be necessary to call a STF member from another zone. Once a determination has been made by the STF to respond to an accident, those persons currently on file in the appropriate STF Zone will be called until we can reach someone who is able to respond immediately.
The "information" contained in an accident scene begins to deteriorate as soon as people begin entering the accident site. Concurrently, the ability to make deductions based upon that information deteriorates as time passes. That is the reason for the policy of calling names on our call list until we can get a responder who can proceed as fast as possible to the accident scene.
