When you work on Main Street, it’s common to see fire trucks roaring down the street, their lights flashing, their sirens screaming and their horns blasting as they approach intersections.

But your skin tends to crawl every time they head through a red light, hoping that drivers crossing Main are alert enough to notice the wailing of the sirens and horns and stop.

The other day, as I was driving east on Main, a fire truck approached from the west, making all kinds of noise. I slowed down and pulled over, just in case the truck decided to make a turn in front of me. At that moment, someone driving an SUV on Ewing Street pulled into the intersection, right in front of this wailing 50,000-pound fire truck, and made a leisurely left turn onto Main.

The SUV, which turned out to be carrying two children, missed getting creamed by this fire truck by just a few feet.

I’ve gotten used to seeing drivers who are oblivious to emergency vehicles, just as I’ve gotten used to watching people run red lights on Jefferson Boulevard at Broadway, and every time I see it, I wonder how long it will be before someone gets killed.

So I asked the Fort Wayne Fire Department, just how big a problem it is?

Stacey Fleming, the fire department’s public information officer, summed it up nicely.

“It’s a huge problem,” she said, a big enough problem that the fire department was actually preparing a public service announcement, reminding people what they should do when an emergency vehicle is approaching.

So far, the oblivious drivers among us have been lucky. Last year, there were only two accidents involving fire trucks and occupied cars. One happened when traffic had pulled over for a fire truck and a driver coming the other way decided to turn right in front of it. That wreck resulted in only minor injuries.

The other wreck happened when a ladder truck was trying to turn a corner. A driver approaching the intersection decided he didn’t want to stop and got clipped by the ladder truck.

But incidents like the one I witnessed on Main Street never get reported. Drivers of fire trucks might go back to the firehouse and talk about a close call they just had, but those events aren’t recorded.

Travis Hosler, a captain in the fire department’s training division, teaches the firefighters who drive the trucks that they must count on drivers to not do what one would expect.

The rules of the road are that when an emergency vehicle is approaching, motorists are to pull over to the right and slow down or stop.

That’s not complicated, is it?

But many drivers don’t do that. They’ll stay where they are, oblivious to the fact that a fire truck or other emergency vehicle is behind them. Some will pull over to the left instead of the right.

Hosler acknowledges that sometimes drivers can be confused. What if a fire truck is traveling down a busy road like Coldwater? Should the driver take the center lane, or the left lane? Motorists can be unsure what to do. Some will actually stop right where they are, in the middle of the road.

Assistant Chief Amy Biggs said the firefighters who drive are taught to trust no one. Even if a driver is entering an intersection and makes eye contact with a motorist, don’t assume they see you. The other driver might just be staring off into nothingness, she said.

One wonders what drivers are thinking. Cars are much better insulated today, Biggs said. Firefighters see that when they have to cut a car apart to free someone who had been trapped in a wreck. Is that part of the problem? She can’t say.

Are drivers just too distracted by all the gadgets, their GPS units and satellite radios and cell phones? Perhaps.

Or, maybe some drivers are just oblivious to what’s around them.

It’s probably worth most drivers’ time to stop and remind themselves of what they should do when an emergency vehicle is approaching, and to perk up just a little bit and look around when they hear a siren. That’s better than getting hit by a fire truck. They weigh 50,000 to 75,000 pounds, Hosler said, and it can take hundreds of feet to stop one.