gamerdonkey

There are a few reasons for this, and none of them are that the firefighters are bored.

The first reason, probably more relevant in Ontario, is just a matter of practicality. If an injury is reported in an accident, the assumption is that a person needs medical attention. Emergency services can't really make an assessment of a scene without being on site, so both are sent in case there needs to be some kind of fire suppression or an extraction to reach the person. Simply, we don't want an ambulance to arrive at an accident, realize on-site that the jaws of life are needed before they can help, wait for another response time, and then render care. The potential to save a life takes precedence over raw efficiency.

(A quick side note about assessing a scene: if you're just driving by, it's basically impossible to tell how bad an injury might be in an accident. Modern cars are very safe, but if someone wasn't wearing their seatbelt and had their head in the wrong place when an airbag went off, even a fender bender can be a life-threatening situation.)

The second, at least in the US, is that ambulances are not considered essential emergency services in many communities[0]. This means that they don't get the same level of funding and are not subject to the same response time requirements as the fire department. Emergency medical services might be covered by a hodgepodge of private companies and volunteer efforts[1], so this also means that public services, such as the fire department, often have to fill in the gaps. Especially in rural areas, ample ambulance coverage just isn't profitable to the private companies that operate the service, so response times can be close to half an hour.

The incentives lead us toward the classic "Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders." scenario.

> Beyond fears about bad actors attempting to distort the markets for profit, some political operatives say the sites rarely deliver political forecasts that are different from traditional polling.

> For instance, polls during Wisconsin's gubernatorial primary showed Democrat David Crowley lagging other candidates by wide margins. Kalshi similarly projected Crowley as a long-shot candidate — but Crowley landed a surprise win.

> "It appears that there really aren't any predictions here, they're just reacting belatedly to public information, like polls and news stories," said Eddie Vale, a Democratic strategist in Washington who worked on Crowley's campaign. "If it was just a fun entertainment tool for political junkies, fine, but to me, all of this is a marketing sheen for an online gambling operation."

The 4400 number is based on a capacity test that the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority performed[1] to certify the Vegas Loop met its contractual requirements, which was 4400 riders per hour. The test was performed with "about 300 people", so results were extrapolated to reach the final number. The LVCVA didn't publish any further information about their methodology, so we can't really comment for sure on how realistic their conclusions might be.

However, a few months after the tunnel opened, there was some criticism[2] saying, "the highest hourly passenger rate hit thus far is 1,355 passengers per hour." It also notied that the ride took 4 minutes instead of the 2-minute goal. A spokesperson from the LVCVA responded:

> “The ride itself does in fact take two minutes,” Nelson-Kraft said. “What wasn’t taken into account are other factors of the Loop experience, like passengers load in and load out time. [...]"

Given that the LVCVA conducted the original capacity "stress test", I think it would be reasonable to guess that they tested only how many passengers can be pushed through the 12-foot-wide tunnel and did not consider loading and unloading as part of overall rates.