Blue lights up your harris on average speed cam road

[5s Alive]

Derek Smith said:

I preferred it when the driver of the car in front just behaved normally. Pull to the left if you can. Don't go doing anything extravagant. Very scary for the emergency driver.

The ambulance in the right-hand lane was probably driving in the interests of the patent. The crew will want to limit lane changes. So, perhaps, not a dick, at least as far as the patient is concerned. I'm sure they were devastated at costing drivers a minute or so.

I'm not recommending breaking the speed limit to get out of the way as a first resort, however I believe you need to adapt to circumstances, there have been many other occasions when I've been able to pull in.

With the X5 above, there were several cars ahead of me who accelerated and pulled in, some into car length gaps, others up to the front. This created a longer queue for me to pass and they then slowed down, bunching traffic behind, leaving nowhere to go except up to the front which was going to take forever at 75.

I confess to not giving the second instance much thought because of the eye-watering closing speed. Had I also slowed then the police cars would have had to brake heavily down to 40 or less and then back up to speed. I've no doubt this wouldn't have been a problem for them, but hope they appreciated me taking action to get safely out of the way without interruption - not that I thought this through at the time, I just reacted.

[Patio]

Just for clarity, it was an unmarked big BMW x something

I didn't see them till right up my bum so assuming the lights went on late

I understand the need to "get a move on" but if they can see that the road is chocka with cars nose to tail doing practically the same speed why not wait till they can see a gap/clear bit then flick on the lights

[ChrisNic]

Let’s hope they weren’t going anywhere important whilst they were held up.

[E-bmw]

cashmax said:

Riley Blue said:

Zarco said:

SlimJim16v said:

Speed up, then slow down to reduce your average.

This. Piece of piss.

Obvious really I'd have thought.

So obvious it really makes me wonder about some people's competence to drive TBH. The OP opted to hold up a potential blue light emergency for a minute, rather than take this simple action.

You say that, but clearly it isn't as clear cut as you are thinking.

It is entirely dependent upon positioning of cameras and their distance apart.

If they are relatively close together you may only be able to speed up for a couple of hundred yards & as the OP said traffic was nose to tail.

So obvious it makes me wonder about peoples competence to drive.

[E-bmw]

GasEngineer said:

Tribal Chestnut said:

GasEngineer said:

Interesting. Is it not the case that the individual cameras act as standalone cameras as well as calculating the average speed? Precisely to stop drivers speeding up / slowing down in this way.

Please don’t say you’re not of those that stamps on the brakes every time that you pass one!

I'm not but what I'm getting at is if you pass one at 60 then the next at 40, your average speed will be OK - but won't the first one have caught you at 60?

Completely (potentially) wrong as the average comes from the time taken to get from camera 1 to camera 2 not the speed that you do going past the cameras.

[E-bmw]

whimsical ninja said:

You said you had to speed up in order to "snail" past the other traffic...why were you in an overtaking lane without overtaking?

These things aren't difficult. As someone else pointed out, you should really have noticed them before they were right behind you (perhaps they'd been sat for a while without you noticing and so moved up close for a change of tactic). Position yourself beside a gap, get your indicator on, make it clear that you want to move into the gap, hold your speed, wait for the car beside you to drop back. Was the police car marked or unmarked?

He was in a 50 average speed zone like he said.

He will have been doing "his 50" which may be 2/3/4/5 MPH more than the cars to his left.

These things aren't difficult are they! Perhaps the car behind him that will have been obscuring his view only pulled in 100 yds before.

[E-bmw]

Jazoli said:

whimsical ninja said:

You said you had to speed up in order to "snail" past the other traffic...why were you in an overtaking lane without overtaking?

Have you never driven on a camera controlled road?

Clearly not.

[E-bmw]

Super Sonic said:

cashmax said:

Riley Blue said:

Zarco said:

SlimJim16v said:

Speed up, then slow down to reduce your average.

This. Piece of piss.

Obvious really I'd have thought.

So obvious it really makes me wonder about some people's competence to drive TBH. The OP opted to hold up a potential blue light emergency for a minute, rather than take this simple action.

Which would mean you still have the police car behind you, and you would not have gone through the average speed section any quicker. Plus you have exceeded the speed limit with a police car behind you, and then slowed to below the speed limit with a police car on an emergency call behind you. You could get a ticket for either 'offence'. The correct procedure is, as already said, indicate left and wait to be let in.

You are wasting your time, he clearly has no idea & just decided to jump on someone else's band-wagon.

[E-bmw]

E63eeeeee... said:

Drawweight said:

I had the opposite happen to me.

I was doing 75 on a dual carriageway and came up behind an ambulance on blues maybe doing just over 70.

They were sitting in the outside lane with the occasional vehicle on the inside but nothing to stop them moving over but they made no attempt to.

I just sat behind for a couple of miles till he peeled off a slip road. I wasn’t really sure if this was policy or they were just a bit of a dick.

I had exactly the same experience on the two lane section of the southbound M74. It occurred to me that there might be someone in the back of the ambulance trying to keep someone else alive, in which endeavour a bunch of unnecessary lane changes might be actively unhelpful, so I just followed until he pulled off.

It strikes me that if you ever find yourself trying to decide whether it's you or the driver of a fking ambulance that's being a bit of a dick, it's going to be you.

I suspect it could be their standard practice to maximise visibility to those in front in either lane who may be thinking about moving lane etc.

[Patio]

ChrisNic said:

Let’s hope they weren’t going anywhere important whilst they were held up.

As I said, they cruised across 3 lanes into the services with lights off after passing me so I'm assuming no

[Riley Blue]

Super Sonic said:

Which would mean you still have the police car behind you, and you would not have gone through the average speed section any quicker. Plus you have exceeded the speed limit with a police car behind you, and then slowed to below the speed limit with a police car on an emergency call behind you. You could get a ticket for either 'offence'. The correct procedure is, as already said, indicate left and wait to be let in.

Provided you don't exceed an average of 50mph through the average speed section what speed limit have you broken?

[Pica-Pica]

A summary.
Average speed cameras measure the time between two points. Average speed = distance divided by time. That is all. Swift, brief overtakes are fine - sustained higher speed is not.

Don’t break a law to allow blue lights through, that is not guaranteed as a defence. A UNIFORMED police officer directing you to do so is acceptable.

On dual carriageways and motorways, ambulances will take the outside lane and stay there, and expect a clear path to be made for them. The paramedic working on the patient in the back will want a stable ride, so will not appreciate frequent and unnecessary lane changes. Similarly, in town, the ambulance driver’s route and speed will depend on the needs of the patient in the back, if there is one.

[Wheelspinning]

Pica-Pica said:

This is about the best you can do. Certainly don’t speed up. It seems the police had inadequate forward observation and planning to get trapped in like that, combined with the fact that most cars don’t see police on blues coming up from behind early enough. If you make frequent mirror checks you can see them early enough.

You should not:
Break speed limits
Go up onto kerbs
Go through red lights
To allow emergency service past you.
It is there job to plan ahead for a space, they are/should be trained for that

Follow the last paragraph, and do not deviate.

Blue light training specifically instructs that under no circumstances should you be pushing traffic in front of you to commit a normal endorsable offence in order to allow the emergency vehicle pass.

[zarjaz1991]

ChrisNic said:

Let’s hope they weren’t going anywhere important whilst they were held up.

It’s hard luck if they were. The authorities have decided that this scenario is no defence in law. It’s their problem.

[zarjaz1991]

cashmax said:

So obvious it really makes me wonder about some people's competence to drive TBH. The OP opted to hold up a potential blue light emergency for a minute, rather than take this simple action.

You are advocating speeding in an average speed camera zone, with a copper behind you.

Good luck with that. I won’t ever be doing it.

[Zarco]

Patio said:

ChrisNic said:

Let’s hope they weren’t going anywhere important whilst they were held up.

As I said, they cruised across 3 lanes into the services with lights off after passing me so I'm assuming no

I'm sure I've seen them using blues to clear the 48mph rolling roadblock out of the way once or twice in the past. Can't say I blame them.

Handy for me to tuck into their slipstream too

[Dave Finney]

GasEngineer said:

Dave Finney said:

Yes, you're right.
It is NOT the case that average cameras monitor your speed at each camera.

Each average camera just:
1. notes your reg Nb,
2. notes the time,
3. takes a photo.

That's really all each camera does. A computer then checks the time taken between cameras and, knowing the distances, calculates the average speed between each pair.
If you do 100mph past each camera, but stop midway for a time, they don't detect an offence.

Thanks for the info. You live and learn !

You're welcome!

[InitialDave]

zarjaz1991 said:

ChrisNic said:

Let’s hope they weren’t going anywhere important whilst they were held up.

It’s hard luck if they were. The authorities have decided that this scenario is no defence in law. It’s their problem.

Yep. If you won't allow people to use their own judgement to find the safest and most expedient way to allow emergency vehicles past, sometimes they're not going to be allowed past.

[E63eeeeee...]

E-bmw said:

E63eeeeee... said:

Drawweight said:

I had the opposite happen to me.

I was doing 75 on a dual carriageway and came up behind an ambulance on blues maybe doing just over 70.

They were sitting in the outside lane with the occasional vehicle on the inside but nothing to stop them moving over but they made no attempt to.

I just sat behind for a couple of miles till he peeled off a slip road. I wasn’t really sure if this was policy or they were just a bit of a dick.

I had exactly the same experience on the two lane section of the southbound M74. It occurred to me that there might be someone in the back of the ambulance trying to keep someone else alive, in which endeavour a bunch of unnecessary lane changes might be actively unhelpful, so I just followed until he pulled off.

It strikes me that if you ever find yourself trying to decide whether it's you or the driver of a fking ambulance that's being a bit of a dick, it's going to be you.

I suspect it could be their standard practice to maximise visibility to those in front in either lane who may be thinking about moving lane etc.

Well, exactly. There's a number of good arguments for it if you think about it. It must make it less confusing for slower vehicles to keep out of the way, probably gives the ambulance driver better visibility past trucks in the inside lane, saves getting trapped by people like the thread OP who think it's OK to do a net 1mph overtake...

[Super Sonic]

Riley Blue said:

Provided you don't exceed an average of 50mph through the average speed section what speed limit have you broken?

If you exceed 50 at any point in a 50 speed limit, you have broken the 50 speed limit.