Mizzou Engineering Electric Car Club contributes to national safety effort

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI STUDENTS GATHER DATA FOR HYBRID AND ELECTRIC VEHICLE FIRST RESPONDER MATERIALS.

STUDENTS JOINING THE UNIVERSITY of Missouri's Electric Car Club as an extracurricular activity never imagined they'd play a key role in a national agency's effort to educate emergency first responders to the intricacies of alternative fuel vehicles. But that opportunity for one of the newest within Mizzou's College of Engineering materialized when motive and means came to fruition under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“A year-and-a-half ago, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) decided to develop and deliver a training curriculum for first responders to incidents involving electric and hybrid vehicles,” said John Cannon, project manager for training development at NFPA, headquartered near Boston. “Companies' technical manuals can be 25 to 30 pages long. They're not aimed at first responders.” First responders include fire services, emergency medical personnel, and law enforcement and tow truck operators.