Will/should emergency vehicles also make the switch to self-driving? If all cars are self-driving it should be simple for those to make room for an emergency vehicle.
I would be absolutely shocked if we didn't at some point. Vehicle accidents are the #2 cause of fatalities for fire and emergency medical personnel. Now granted, a high number of those are from volunteers that are responding in personal vehicles, but there's not a person on this job that hasn't seen emergency vehicles involved in or tangentially related to accidents that occur around them. I've been involved in an accident while driving (rear-ended while at a complete stop making a turn with lights and siren going) and know of scores of others.
In Milwaukee, there has been a push for ambulances to use lights and siren less frequently when responding to medical calls (for private ambulances like Bell & Paratech) and when transporting to the hospital (for all ambulances, including Advanced Life Support like Milwaukee Paramedic units). We're using less lights and siren in a hope to be safer, but also because drivers too often don't know how to respond when they see an emergency response vehicle behind them. I've seen people run red lights, stop dead in traffic, pull to the left, start speeding as fast as possible to avoid pulling over, and become involved in accidents themselves because they have no clue what to do when there's an emergency vehicle responding in their vicinity (the correct answer is calmly pull to the right and come to a complete stop).
When it comes to the fire service, what makes dollars makes sense. Bear in mind that while we may see this for passenger vehicles relatively soon, it may be more difficult to implement the technology in a 30-ton fire truck that needs to be programmed to respond in an emergency fashion. Most ambulances are far more like a passenger vehicle, so I could see that coming sooner (think of driving them similar to driving a U-Haul) but I'm not sure it will be as easy to convert the technology when you are talking about an engine or ladder.
Also, it's entirely possible that actual emergency response (lights and siren) will remain in the control of a human being. That said, if every vehicle out there is correctly pulling to the right, it will make the driver's job much easier. At the end of the day, it will be about safety. I always tell new drivers that their most important job is to follow the safety procedures (completely stopping at every red light/stop sign, checking blind spots, using spotters when backing up) and make sure that they and their co-workers go home safely in the morning. Whatever accomplishes that I will be 100% in favor of.
