Lifeguards Cruise Huntington Beach in Toyota Tacomas

Tim Esterdahl | Apr 17, 2012 | Comments 1

Imagine being a Huntington Beach lifeguard working on your tan, checking out the scenery and cruising around in a sweet, custom fitted Toyota Tacoma. Ah, what a life! The Huntington Beach lifeguards use Toyota Tacoma pickups to help save lives. Pretty cool, right?

How sweet it is! The Toyota Tacoma retrofitted to help Huntington Beach lifeguards save lives.

Toyota is the official lifeguard vehicle of Surf City. This arrangement means the city gets the full use of 11 Toyota vehicles without having to pay for them. Toyota then gets the exclusive sponsorship opportunity to be the lifeguards ride.

The truck looks like a pretty standard Tacoma with the obvious addition of lights and the surf board holder in the bed. It is most likely equipped with all sorts of emergency responder radio systems in the dash.

Lifeguards use the trucks to patrol the 3.5 miles of shoreline from dawn to dusk, 365 days a year. This amount of shoreline means that up to 65 lifeguards are employed during the summer season.

Besides the Tacoma, the lifeguards also use:

24 Lifeguard Towers & Tower Zero on the pier equipped with medical supplies
11 Fully-equipped Toyota Emergency Vehicles
Underwater Search & Recovery Team Gear (SCUBA/Wetsuits & Dry suits)
Personal Protection Equipment for Chemical & Biological Exposures/Mark I Auto Injector Kits
3 Twin-Engine Rescue Vessels
4 Rescue Honda Personal Watercraft (PWC)
1 Inflatable Rescue Boat (motorized)
8 Inflatable flood boats
4 Honda ATVs
Swiftwater/Flood Rescue Equipment
Cliff Rescue Gear Bags/Light Rescue Rigging Systems

Not a bad collection of items for a beach that saw almost 8 million visitors and nearly 3,000 rescues in 2010.

What a cool ride, for a cool job. I wonder if Baywatch was still around, how much Toyota would pay to have their truck be the truck of choice. Pamela Anderson jumping out of a Tacoma? Priceless.