A million times a year, fire trucks are driven into the streets of New York City, usually at breakneck speeds with lights and sirens blaring. The rush is often critical: Firefighters converge on fires, douse the flames and save lives.

The same response applies in less serious situations — calls that are not life-threatening, which are expected to reach around 230,000 this year after steadily rising from 41,054 in 1969.

But with 35-ton rigs barreling through red lights and forcing traffic off the roads or through busy intersections, accidents occur, sometimes with deadly consequences. Nearly 700 times last year, the city’s fire trucks collided with other vehicles and, occasionally, with one another.

Now, for the first time, the Fire Department is re-engineering its approach: Its plan, set to begin on Monday as a three-month pilot program in Queens, is meant to slow firefighters’ responses to certain calls by having them turn off their lights and sirens and follow the usual traffic rules.

In 2009, there were 148 accidents involving fire trucks that were responding to calls for things like water and gas leaks, toppled trees, foul odors, false alarms and faulty sprinkler system activations.

In October, for example, a ladder truck flipped and skidded into a tree after hitting an engine truck racing to the same nonfire emergency in Brooklyn, pinning a driver in the wreckage and injuring more than a dozen people.

For Salvatore J. Cassano, the city’s fire commissioner, the idea to alter the protocols first took root in the 1990s, when he was a division commander in Brooklyn and saw a civilian killed after a fire truck racing to a minor event crashed in the street. “It is long overdue,” Mr. Cassano said.

“Often, responding to a call can be even more dangerous for our members than the incident itself,” Mr. Cassano added. “We want to minimize the danger this poses to firefighters and the public.”

All-out emergency responses will still apply for fires and medical calls.

(Read More: NY Times)