{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/ambulance-drivers-and-attendants-except-emergency-medical-technicians/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Ambulance Drivers and Attendants, Except Emergency Medical Technicians",
    "soc_code": "53-3011",
    "category": "Transportation",
    "us_employment": 12630,
    "median_annual_wage": 35450
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 50,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 15,
    "embodiment": 18,
    "liability_shield": 4,
    "trust_premium": 8,
    "judgment_accountability": 5
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Backing a rig into a nursing-home portico, two-person draw-sheet transfers off a bed, strapping a bariatric patient to a stair chair, and decontaminating a compartment after a GI bleed are not tasks a model performs — only the trip sheet, the mileage log and the route choice are automatable, which is why this sits at 15 rather than 18: dispatch routing and non-emergency scheduling really have moved to software.",
    "embodiment": "Every shift is spent outside a controlled space — ice on a driveway, a third-floor walkup with no elevator, a highway shoulder with traffic passing at 60 — and the lifting is unpredictable dead weight, not palletized loads, which is why this is 18 rather than a warehouse-floor 12.",
    "liability_shield": "Most states license the vehicle and the service, not you; a CPR card, a clean MVR and often just a chauffeur's or ambulance driver's endorsement is the entry bar, and when something goes wrong it's the EMT, the medical director, or the service's certificate that's exposed — the 4 reflects that a driving endorsement is a real credential, just not a personal practice licence.",
    "trust_premium": "Repeat non-emergency runs mean dialysis and hospice patients learn your name and ask for you, and facility staff route work to drivers who don't damage doorframes — but the dispatch assigns the unit, not the customer, so the relationship is a courtesy layer rather than the product, hence 8.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Your calls are lights-and-siren policy, route, and when to stop and get help lifting — all bounded by service protocol, state traffic law, and the fact that clinical decisions in the box belong to the certified attendant; a 5 reflects genuine split-second driving judgment inside a very tight procedural box."
  },
  "rationale": "The core of this job — driving a rig through live traffic, lifting and securing patients onto stretchers, loading gurneys, cleaning and restocking the vehicle — is physical work in uncontrolled settings that today's robotics cannot touch. What AI can absorb is the thin paperwork layer: trip logs, dispatch routing, billing forms, and mileage records. The real pressure on this occupation isn't AI at all; it's regulatory and market drift toward requiring EMT certification for anyone in the patient compartment, which has been shrinking the non-EMT headcount for years.",
  "outlook": "The driving and lifting will still need a human in 10 years, but the non-EMT title keeps shrinking as employers require certification, so the safest path is credentialing up rather than staying in the driver-only role.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State EMS office rules that make the ambulance driver a separately licensed/certified role with personal accountability — e.g. mandatory state EMS Driver/Operator certification (EVOC or CEVO) tied to the individual, plus insurer requirements (ambulance liability carriers already demand documented EVOC training) that name the certified operator on the run report. If a state adds a signed driver attestation to the patient care record, the shield rises materially.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "Nothing raises this by rule; it is already near ceiling. The only route is if bariatric and home-extraction transports keep growing as a share of call volume (powered-cot and stair-chair use in cluttered residences), which pushes the physical work further from any automatable envelope.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 1
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Two-tier shift: if AI dispatch, auto-routing, ePCR autofill, and billing capture the clerical tier, what remains is unpredictable-scene work — backing into driveways, scene safety, patient handling. Conditional on the occupation surviving the EMT-certification squeeze at all, since that pressure is not AI-driven.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "If state scope rules formally assign the driver responsibility for lights-and-siren discretion — some agencies and NAEMT-influenced policies already require the operator to justify emergency-mode driving in the run report after wrong-way and intersection crash litigation — the role owns a consequential ambiguous call rather than executing a dispatcher's.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Trust premium has no realistic route: patients and families do not select an ambulance, and no buyer specifically pays for a human driver. The binding threat here is credential displacement by EMTs, not AI, and no lever on this register addresses it."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 15310,
        "wage": 24260
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 15380,
        "wage": 25750
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 14740,
        "wage": 25890
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 14120,
        "wage": 27930
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 11710,
        "wage": 29120
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 9910,
        "wage": 30380
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 11520,
        "wage": 32580
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 12080,
        "wage": 34330
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 12630,
        "wage": 35450
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -17.5,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [
    {
      "slug": "bus-drivers-school",
      "title": "Bus Drivers, School",
      "verdict": "SAFE",
      "risk_resistance": 71,
      "median_wage": 47920,
      "overlap": 63,
      "skills_to_close": []
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}