Quite a bit of equipment can't be reached like that. If I sit in the captains seat, I can reach my airway stuff, but I'm facing the back of their head. Kind of an awkward way to CPAP. I can't really reach my drug boxes or McGrath (I can open the door, but it swings towards me and can't reach all the way in). I can't reach any of our IV/med bins. And I can't reach any of our trauma bins. If I sit on the bench, all I can reach is towels and suction equipment. If I'm gonna take the time to set it all up to do while transporting, I might as well just take the time to do it on scene.
A lot of the emergent transports (shootings being the most common lately) that I can't stay and play on, I'm not wearing a seatbelt. If I have something like an arrest where I play, then it actually is in arms reach and I am belted.
Being as short as I am, in the vast majority of our type IIIs, I can’t even reach my patient. So if I need to put back on an EKG lead, adjust a BP cuff, admin a medication, adjust their nasal EtCO2, I have to unbuckle and stand up. All I can do from sitting down is watch my patient and chart.
I would strap our bags next to me on the bench and work out of them, there was very little that I didn't have in the bags that I needed during transport.