A police car and a screamin' siren...
Discussion
...Pneumatic drill and ripped-up concrete.
Emergency response driving
Firstly, an apology. This is a looong post. I tried to edit it down, but it's an involved subject and I didn't want to miss anything, so put the kettle on and put your feet up.
“Emergency response” driving is the type of driving employed by the emergency services when they are required to attend an emergency incident. For the police, calls to the control room are graded by the operator into several different levels of response, and those graded as “grade 1” or “code 1” will receive an emergency response.
A grade 1 police response will be given to incidents which involve (or potentially involve) a threat to life, the use of violence, serious injury or serious damage to property. An emergency response will also be given to incidents where a (serious) crime is in progress, an offender has been recently disturbed or detained and for road traffic accidents where an injury has occurred or where the road is blocked.
Incident grading in the ambulance service is decided in each individual case, based on the immediate needs of the patients. It’s one of the reasons that the operator asks a series of very detailed questions about the patient and their condition. As an aside, I’ve had cause to call an ambulance twice in the last year or so, and ambulance control room operators are some of the most professional people I’ve ever dealt with in an emergency situation
The Fire Service are a little more old fashioned and tend to treat most calls as requiring an emergency response until they have arrived and assessed the incident.
Legal Exemptions
I’m not going to go into too much detail on legal exemptions, other than to say that police, fire and ambulance drivers (together with a small number of military, rescue and clandestine service drivers) are exempt from certain road traffic regulations, such as speed limits, red traffic lights, keep left/right signs and a few others.
There is a nice PH Wiki on the subject here if you want to know more;
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
One thing I will mention in relation to exemptions is the fact that these are absolute exemptions from specific regulations. In other words, they are not conditional on blue lights and sirens being used. Surveillance driving, for example, would be impossible if the surveillance officers were required to use blue lights to claim an exemption.
The other thing to bear in mind is that there is no exemption from careless or dangerous driving offences, so emergency drivers should remember that, despite their exemptions, they are still responsible for their actions should the wheel come off.
And a note on accidents. One key phrase in police driver training is “Drive to arrive”. The ultimate aim isn’t to get to an incident as quickly as possible – it’s simply to get to the incident. If you crash on your way to the incident, you’re out of the game, someone else will have to attend the incident, and someone else will have to come and deal with your accident. Getting it wrong can, very quickly, tie up a whole shift of officers unecessarily.
Before I go any further, I’ll add that the driving skills I’ll be writing about relate solely to emergency response, and not pursuits, which require a completely different set of skills and a higher level of driver training.
These days, all standard level police drivers receive several days of emergency response instruction towards the end of their driving course. This was not always the case. Until around the early 2000s, (in my force at least) standard and advanced students received no emergency response instruction whatsoever. They would be taught how to drive systematically to a good standard, but the response driving was just something they had to work out for themselves.
As you can imagine, this wasn’t ideal, and in the early years of my police career I was the passenger with numerous drivers who had – shall we say questionable skills - in making dynamic risk assessment.
Loonies, in other words.
Honestly – in the 1990’s, there were some absolutely certifiable mentalists out there disguised as police officers. I try not to think about how many close calls, scrapes and “close your eyes and prey” moments I endured from the passenger seat. If I’m being honest, I was probably guilty of some lunacy myself in those early days, but I survived intact and subsequently saw the light.
The Equipment
The first panda car I drove was a 1986 two-door Rover Metro with a 1275 A series engine and a 4 speed gearbox. The only emergency equipment fitted was a single blue beacon, about the size and shape of an upturned plant pot on the roof and illuminated “police” signs on the front and rear. No battenberg livery, no alternate flashing headlights, no rear flashing red lights, no light bar, no strobes and no sirens. It didn’t even have an orange stripe along the sides.
These days, emergency vehicles are designed to be as visible and identifiable as possible, because above everything else, if you’re driving to an emergency, the sooner other drivers see you, the longer they have to react, and as you’ll see later, it’s the reactions of other drivers that we’re looking for.
A fairly standard emergency set-up these days is a flashing blue roof bar, alternate-flashing headlights and a whoop/wail siren. The blue lights can be operated with or without the flashing headlights, which you would usually want to leave off on unlit roads at night to avoid dazzling. The sirens are usually operated by the horn switch. When the blue lights are off, it just operates the horn as normal. When the blues are switched on, the first press of the horn will activate the “whooper” siren (the slower of the two sirens), the second press of the horn will switch to the “wailer” and the third press will switch the sirens off. We’ll look at the advantages of switching from whoop to wail in a bit.
There are other combinations, depending on the service or area. There are numerous different types of flashing lights, strobes and sirens continually being developed – squawks, white noise etc, but for this post I’ll stick with the standard set-up described above.
Protection
So, how much protection does the emergency equipment give you?
Some emergency drivers seem to think that the blue lights and sirens create an invisible protective force-field around their vehicle which will defend them from all possible threats.
They don't.
All the emergency equipment does is make you more visible. That’s it. It does not mean that people will actually see you – it just means that they are more likely to see you. It does not give you any protection and it does not guarantee that you’ll get the reactions you’re looking for – or any reaction whatsoever – from other road users.
On to the actual driving
Believe it or not, emergency response driving, if performed correctly, can actually be quite a relaxing way to drive. This might sound implausible, considering the possible nature of the incident the driver is attending, but if you’re able to separate that element out – compartmentalise it – and think only about the driving, it can, genuinely, be a relaxing way to drive.
Think about it – you don’t have to sit in stationary traffic, you don’t have to be held up by traffic lights or other junctions, you’re not restricted by speed limits and almost every other road user will do their best to get out of your way and allow you precedence. If you can keep your concentration levels high and you employ good observation and planning, it’s relatively easy, with a little experience, to stay quite relaxed on an emergency run.
Lets start with a single carriageway with traffic moving in both directions. You’re looking for reactions from other road users which indicate that they have seen you and that they are giving you precedence. The traffic coming towards you is more likely to see you before the traffic travelling in your direction. You should position your vehicle in such a way as to make yourself as visible as possible and also in such a way as to indicate your intentions to others.
The key theme is to hold back, position yourself appropriately and wait for a reaction. Oncoming vehicles will move to their left to give you more room. Vehicles ahead will move to the left, sometimes with an indicator confirming that they’re pulling over. The emergency driver should hold back, position to the offside – often straddling the white line – and wait for these reactions before passing and continuing.
There are some common bad reactions from other drivers which often catch out the novice, but can be predicted with a little experience. For example, if you’re following two vehicles, it’s quite common for the front vehicle to see you and react by pulling over to the nearside and slowing, only for the rear vehicles – the one which really should have seen you, to pull out and pass the front vehicle, oblivious to your existence, just as you are about to pass them yourself.
Drivers will often pull up adjacent to traffic islands and bollards, leaving you little or nor room to pass. Be patient, either move to the offside of the bollard or sit and wait for them to wake up, which they usually do after a couple of seconds.
One bad reaction I’ve never understood comes from drivers sitting in junctions ahead. They’re waiting to join your road, looking in your direction and they’ve definitely seen you approaching. Instead of waiting for you to pass, they will pull out and then immediately move over to the left to let you pass. Why not just wait? I’ve never been able to work that one out.
They key with all these situations is that the driver should hold back, keep a safe distance, and wait until it’s safe to pass. Sounds familiar? Does it sound a bit like Roadcraft system? Stay on the brakes until it’s safe to go, come off the brakes, take the appropriate gear and then accelerate. For many new police drivers, the emergency response training is the point in their driving course when system really “clicks” and they finally get the point of separating their actions into the five phases.
Traffic light junctions can be particularly hazardous. Emergency drivers should treat red traffic lights as a “give way” junction, so flying through red lights with a quick glance on approach is very bad practice. Instead, drivers should approach cautiously, at a speed which should allow them to stop if someone pulls across the junction.
If there is a build up of traffic on the approach to a junction, there are generally two choices. An offside approach usually offers the least resistance, but can be risky, particularly at a poorly sighted junction. The other approach is to position yourself straddling the lanes, with lights and sirens switched on, and wait for the “parting of the waves”. Once the other drivers have clocked you and realised your intentions, they will generally move to their left and right, and create an extra lane to allow you through.
There are times, however, when there simply isn’t room for people to move, and it is occasionally good practice to switch off the sirens, leave your blue lights on, and just wait for the lights to change. When they do, switch your siren back on, and once the traffic is moving again, people will be able to give you room to pass.
When driving in urban areas, the high buildings and proximity of walls can make it difficult for others to work out what direction your sirens are coming from. This can be where the switch from whoop to wail (and back again) can help. Often the change in note or frequency of a siren helps people to recognise the direction it’s coming from.
There is another problem in the cities – what I term “siren apathy”. Sirens are so common in busy cities that people have started to either not notice them, or to actually ignore them. It’s the reason that the motorcyclists in the Met’s Special Escort Group don’t use sirens, but instead use very loud whistles.
Whilst we’re in the city, be very very cautious of pedestrians. They may be sensible and alert to your movements. On the other hand, they may be deaf, or blind, or both, or drunk, or high, or listening to headphones or even mentally deranged. It’s almost impossible to tell in the short time you’ve got to make an assessment, but look for reactions – people looking towards you or putting their hands over their ears. The ones to be really careful of are the people who don’t react. They are the ones who are most likely to be unaware of your presence, and who may suddenly decide to cross the road…
On the motorway, at higher speeds, sirens tend to be fairly ineffective. The cars in front are travelling away from you at speed, so are very unlikely to hear a siren on a vehicle approaching from the rear. Position in the offside lane and wait for vehicles to move to their left. Keep a good following position and be ready for bad reactions – sudden braking to a stop in lane 3 is not unheard of and it’s occasionally necessary to pass drivers on the nearside.
In stationary motorway traffic the hard shoulder is your best option, but keep your speed down. Some drivers may react badly to your lights and move to the hard shoulder, so you need to be ready to stop. There is also a lot of debris on the hard shoulder, so you need to mitigate the risk of puncture by keeping your speed down. Also, don’t forget what the hard shoulder is for – you may encounter stationary vehicles.
There are other risks associated with travelling in convoy with other emergency vehicles. Drivers usually see the first vehicle, move over, allow it to pass, and then fail to realise there is more than one vehicle. There are two approaches in these situations. The first is to close right up and keep a minimum distance between vehicles, effectively travelling as one large vehicle. This doesn’t allow time for drivers to pull out in front of the second vehicle, but it does have associated risks and the second driver is very reliant on the decisions of the first driver, which isn’t ideal.
The second approach is to increase the distance between emergency vehicles to a few hundred yards. This allows people to see and react to the second vehicle in plenty of time and is a safer option in my opinion.
And finally, some thoughts on the mental aspects.
There are two elements of emergency response driving which are entirely dependent on the driver's own mental state. They are red mist and noble cause risk taking.
We're all familiar with red mist - it's the situation when a drivers emotions take over and their ability to make realistic dynamic risk assessments is seriously hampered by the amount of adrenaline being produced by their body. The adrenaline puts their body in "fight or flight" mode, which is a throwback to our animal days where the body is quickly prepared for running away or fighting by the affects of adrenaline - raised heart rate and blood pressure, and - worryingly for drivers - a tunnelling of their vision and reduction in awareness of their hearing. Fine motor skills become much more difficult and it dramatically changes a driver's thinking process.
Red mist shifts a driver's thinking on to the target or goal - the incident they are attending - rather than thinking about the job at hand - the driving.
The second element I mentioned - noble cause risk taking - allows drivers to justify their poor decisions by claiming that they are necessary because someone's life is at risk, or there is some other "noble cause" to justify their risky behaviour. Even for a driver who is fully in control of their emotions, noble cause risk taking can creep into their driving and create very real dangers.
Good quality driver training can help - if you're affected by red mist, for instance, a good grounding in systematic driving can at least give you a good "baseline" standard of driving to fall back on when the adrenaline is flowing.
But, ultimately, it's down to to individual drivers and their ability to recognise when these issues are arising, and having the ability to overcome them and keep their attention fully on the driving.
Anyway, that’s more than enough for now. If you’re an emergency response driver, feel free to share your experiences.
Emergency response driving
Firstly, an apology. This is a looong post. I tried to edit it down, but it's an involved subject and I didn't want to miss anything, so put the kettle on and put your feet up.
“Emergency response” driving is the type of driving employed by the emergency services when they are required to attend an emergency incident. For the police, calls to the control room are graded by the operator into several different levels of response, and those graded as “grade 1” or “code 1” will receive an emergency response.
A grade 1 police response will be given to incidents which involve (or potentially involve) a threat to life, the use of violence, serious injury or serious damage to property. An emergency response will also be given to incidents where a (serious) crime is in progress, an offender has been recently disturbed or detained and for road traffic accidents where an injury has occurred or where the road is blocked.
Incident grading in the ambulance service is decided in each individual case, based on the immediate needs of the patients. It’s one of the reasons that the operator asks a series of very detailed questions about the patient and their condition. As an aside, I’ve had cause to call an ambulance twice in the last year or so, and ambulance control room operators are some of the most professional people I’ve ever dealt with in an emergency situation
The Fire Service are a little more old fashioned and tend to treat most calls as requiring an emergency response until they have arrived and assessed the incident.
Legal Exemptions
I’m not going to go into too much detail on legal exemptions, other than to say that police, fire and ambulance drivers (together with a small number of military, rescue and clandestine service drivers) are exempt from certain road traffic regulations, such as speed limits, red traffic lights, keep left/right signs and a few others.
There is a nice PH Wiki on the subject here if you want to know more;
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
One thing I will mention in relation to exemptions is the fact that these are absolute exemptions from specific regulations. In other words, they are not conditional on blue lights and sirens being used. Surveillance driving, for example, would be impossible if the surveillance officers were required to use blue lights to claim an exemption.
The other thing to bear in mind is that there is no exemption from careless or dangerous driving offences, so emergency drivers should remember that, despite their exemptions, they are still responsible for their actions should the wheel come off.
And a note on accidents. One key phrase in police driver training is “Drive to arrive”. The ultimate aim isn’t to get to an incident as quickly as possible – it’s simply to get to the incident. If you crash on your way to the incident, you’re out of the game, someone else will have to attend the incident, and someone else will have to come and deal with your accident. Getting it wrong can, very quickly, tie up a whole shift of officers unecessarily.
Before I go any further, I’ll add that the driving skills I’ll be writing about relate solely to emergency response, and not pursuits, which require a completely different set of skills and a higher level of driver training.
These days, all standard level police drivers receive several days of emergency response instruction towards the end of their driving course. This was not always the case. Until around the early 2000s, (in my force at least) standard and advanced students received no emergency response instruction whatsoever. They would be taught how to drive systematically to a good standard, but the response driving was just something they had to work out for themselves.
As you can imagine, this wasn’t ideal, and in the early years of my police career I was the passenger with numerous drivers who had – shall we say questionable skills - in making dynamic risk assessment.
Loonies, in other words.
Honestly – in the 1990’s, there were some absolutely certifiable mentalists out there disguised as police officers. I try not to think about how many close calls, scrapes and “close your eyes and prey” moments I endured from the passenger seat. If I’m being honest, I was probably guilty of some lunacy myself in those early days, but I survived intact and subsequently saw the light.
The Equipment
The first panda car I drove was a 1986 two-door Rover Metro with a 1275 A series engine and a 4 speed gearbox. The only emergency equipment fitted was a single blue beacon, about the size and shape of an upturned plant pot on the roof and illuminated “police” signs on the front and rear. No battenberg livery, no alternate flashing headlights, no rear flashing red lights, no light bar, no strobes and no sirens. It didn’t even have an orange stripe along the sides.
These days, emergency vehicles are designed to be as visible and identifiable as possible, because above everything else, if you’re driving to an emergency, the sooner other drivers see you, the longer they have to react, and as you’ll see later, it’s the reactions of other drivers that we’re looking for.
A fairly standard emergency set-up these days is a flashing blue roof bar, alternate-flashing headlights and a whoop/wail siren. The blue lights can be operated with or without the flashing headlights, which you would usually want to leave off on unlit roads at night to avoid dazzling. The sirens are usually operated by the horn switch. When the blue lights are off, it just operates the horn as normal. When the blues are switched on, the first press of the horn will activate the “whooper” siren (the slower of the two sirens), the second press of the horn will switch to the “wailer” and the third press will switch the sirens off. We’ll look at the advantages of switching from whoop to wail in a bit.
There are other combinations, depending on the service or area. There are numerous different types of flashing lights, strobes and sirens continually being developed – squawks, white noise etc, but for this post I’ll stick with the standard set-up described above.
Protection
So, how much protection does the emergency equipment give you?
Some emergency drivers seem to think that the blue lights and sirens create an invisible protective force-field around their vehicle which will defend them from all possible threats.
They don't.
All the emergency equipment does is make you more visible. That’s it. It does not mean that people will actually see you – it just means that they are more likely to see you. It does not give you any protection and it does not guarantee that you’ll get the reactions you’re looking for – or any reaction whatsoever – from other road users.
On to the actual driving
Believe it or not, emergency response driving, if performed correctly, can actually be quite a relaxing way to drive. This might sound implausible, considering the possible nature of the incident the driver is attending, but if you’re able to separate that element out – compartmentalise it – and think only about the driving, it can, genuinely, be a relaxing way to drive.
Think about it – you don’t have to sit in stationary traffic, you don’t have to be held up by traffic lights or other junctions, you’re not restricted by speed limits and almost every other road user will do their best to get out of your way and allow you precedence. If you can keep your concentration levels high and you employ good observation and planning, it’s relatively easy, with a little experience, to stay quite relaxed on an emergency run.
Lets start with a single carriageway with traffic moving in both directions. You’re looking for reactions from other road users which indicate that they have seen you and that they are giving you precedence. The traffic coming towards you is more likely to see you before the traffic travelling in your direction. You should position your vehicle in such a way as to make yourself as visible as possible and also in such a way as to indicate your intentions to others.
The key theme is to hold back, position yourself appropriately and wait for a reaction. Oncoming vehicles will move to their left to give you more room. Vehicles ahead will move to the left, sometimes with an indicator confirming that they’re pulling over. The emergency driver should hold back, position to the offside – often straddling the white line – and wait for these reactions before passing and continuing.
There are some common bad reactions from other drivers which often catch out the novice, but can be predicted with a little experience. For example, if you’re following two vehicles, it’s quite common for the front vehicle to see you and react by pulling over to the nearside and slowing, only for the rear vehicles – the one which really should have seen you, to pull out and pass the front vehicle, oblivious to your existence, just as you are about to pass them yourself.
Drivers will often pull up adjacent to traffic islands and bollards, leaving you little or nor room to pass. Be patient, either move to the offside of the bollard or sit and wait for them to wake up, which they usually do after a couple of seconds.
One bad reaction I’ve never understood comes from drivers sitting in junctions ahead. They’re waiting to join your road, looking in your direction and they’ve definitely seen you approaching. Instead of waiting for you to pass, they will pull out and then immediately move over to the left to let you pass. Why not just wait? I’ve never been able to work that one out.
They key with all these situations is that the driver should hold back, keep a safe distance, and wait until it’s safe to pass. Sounds familiar? Does it sound a bit like Roadcraft system? Stay on the brakes until it’s safe to go, come off the brakes, take the appropriate gear and then accelerate. For many new police drivers, the emergency response training is the point in their driving course when system really “clicks” and they finally get the point of separating their actions into the five phases.
Traffic light junctions can be particularly hazardous. Emergency drivers should treat red traffic lights as a “give way” junction, so flying through red lights with a quick glance on approach is very bad practice. Instead, drivers should approach cautiously, at a speed which should allow them to stop if someone pulls across the junction.
If there is a build up of traffic on the approach to a junction, there are generally two choices. An offside approach usually offers the least resistance, but can be risky, particularly at a poorly sighted junction. The other approach is to position yourself straddling the lanes, with lights and sirens switched on, and wait for the “parting of the waves”. Once the other drivers have clocked you and realised your intentions, they will generally move to their left and right, and create an extra lane to allow you through.
There are times, however, when there simply isn’t room for people to move, and it is occasionally good practice to switch off the sirens, leave your blue lights on, and just wait for the lights to change. When they do, switch your siren back on, and once the traffic is moving again, people will be able to give you room to pass.
When driving in urban areas, the high buildings and proximity of walls can make it difficult for others to work out what direction your sirens are coming from. This can be where the switch from whoop to wail (and back again) can help. Often the change in note or frequency of a siren helps people to recognise the direction it’s coming from.
There is another problem in the cities – what I term “siren apathy”. Sirens are so common in busy cities that people have started to either not notice them, or to actually ignore them. It’s the reason that the motorcyclists in the Met’s Special Escort Group don’t use sirens, but instead use very loud whistles.
Whilst we’re in the city, be very very cautious of pedestrians. They may be sensible and alert to your movements. On the other hand, they may be deaf, or blind, or both, or drunk, or high, or listening to headphones or even mentally deranged. It’s almost impossible to tell in the short time you’ve got to make an assessment, but look for reactions – people looking towards you or putting their hands over their ears. The ones to be really careful of are the people who don’t react. They are the ones who are most likely to be unaware of your presence, and who may suddenly decide to cross the road…
On the motorway, at higher speeds, sirens tend to be fairly ineffective. The cars in front are travelling away from you at speed, so are very unlikely to hear a siren on a vehicle approaching from the rear. Position in the offside lane and wait for vehicles to move to their left. Keep a good following position and be ready for bad reactions – sudden braking to a stop in lane 3 is not unheard of and it’s occasionally necessary to pass drivers on the nearside.
In stationary motorway traffic the hard shoulder is your best option, but keep your speed down. Some drivers may react badly to your lights and move to the hard shoulder, so you need to be ready to stop. There is also a lot of debris on the hard shoulder, so you need to mitigate the risk of puncture by keeping your speed down. Also, don’t forget what the hard shoulder is for – you may encounter stationary vehicles.
There are other risks associated with travelling in convoy with other emergency vehicles. Drivers usually see the first vehicle, move over, allow it to pass, and then fail to realise there is more than one vehicle. There are two approaches in these situations. The first is to close right up and keep a minimum distance between vehicles, effectively travelling as one large vehicle. This doesn’t allow time for drivers to pull out in front of the second vehicle, but it does have associated risks and the second driver is very reliant on the decisions of the first driver, which isn’t ideal.
The second approach is to increase the distance between emergency vehicles to a few hundred yards. This allows people to see and react to the second vehicle in plenty of time and is a safer option in my opinion.
And finally, some thoughts on the mental aspects.
There are two elements of emergency response driving which are entirely dependent on the driver's own mental state. They are red mist and noble cause risk taking.
We're all familiar with red mist - it's the situation when a drivers emotions take over and their ability to make realistic dynamic risk assessments is seriously hampered by the amount of adrenaline being produced by their body. The adrenaline puts their body in "fight or flight" mode, which is a throwback to our animal days where the body is quickly prepared for running away or fighting by the affects of adrenaline - raised heart rate and blood pressure, and - worryingly for drivers - a tunnelling of their vision and reduction in awareness of their hearing. Fine motor skills become much more difficult and it dramatically changes a driver's thinking process.
Red mist shifts a driver's thinking on to the target or goal - the incident they are attending - rather than thinking about the job at hand - the driving.
The second element I mentioned - noble cause risk taking - allows drivers to justify their poor decisions by claiming that they are necessary because someone's life is at risk, or there is some other "noble cause" to justify their risky behaviour. Even for a driver who is fully in control of their emotions, noble cause risk taking can creep into their driving and create very real dangers.
Good quality driver training can help - if you're affected by red mist, for instance, a good grounding in systematic driving can at least give you a good "baseline" standard of driving to fall back on when the adrenaline is flowing.
But, ultimately, it's down to to individual drivers and their ability to recognise when these issues are arising, and having the ability to overcome them and keep their attention fully on the driving.
Anyway, that’s more than enough for now. If you’re an emergency response driver, feel free to share your experiences.
Good to see a return to The Jam lyrics.
While we're waiting for people who actually know something about the subject to contribute, I'll just link to the Chris Gilbert video of a blue light run. Is this the kind of relaxed progress you're talking about?
While we're waiting for people who actually know something about the subject to contribute, I'll just link to the Chris Gilbert video of a blue light run. Is this the kind of relaxed progress you're talking about?
I think you have summed up the pertinent points. I think one the biggest things is dont assume you know what other drivers will do because invariably they will do the opposite! Responding in unmarked vehicles is a different ball game,a lot of road users dont see marked vehicle coming let alone these. You literally have to have eyes in the back of your head, the key is of course as you have already stated, hold back and assess the situation. Slowly arriving into hazards lets others plan for you and makes life easier, some of the things you see drivers doing to get out of the way is questionable however. Positioning is vital as this helps to manipulate other road users to make your progress easier and of course it always important to thank people for their help as this promotes compliance in the future! But when driving any emergency vehicle the standard of driving should be (I know it isn't always) beyond reproach, especially when utilising exemptions!
Just to add- I have assessed some of the meekest drivers under normal driving conditions and then asked them to turn on the warning equipment and I have to say the change in personality can be quite startling! They go from being quite a nervous driver into something that has been possessed, it's like someone has switched a switch on, as the adrenaline takes over they need to be brought back down to earth and consider the risks! I will depending on the student offer a demonstration and often the response I get is 'that was slower than I thought it would be' in reality there isn't much in it, the difference is I leave nothing to chance and speed is appropriate. I then expect the same standard of drive after that demonstrating correct decision making based upon the environment.
R_U_LOCAL said:
Drivers will often pull up adjacent to traffic islands and bollards, leaving you little or nor room to pass.
S. Gonzales Esq. said:
I'll just link to the Chris Gilbert video of a blue light run.
A good example of this numptiness @1:51 in the video: the (silver?) car ahead comes off the accelerator, brakes while still on the zebra crossing, and nearly comes to a halt just a few yards further on thereby causing unnecessary and avoidable hindrance to the smooth progress of the police car. I do wonder what thought process goes on in the heads of such people.Superbly informative threads R U. I'm always learning something from each one, so please keep them coming.
S. Gonzales Esq. said:
Good to see a return to The Jam lyrics.
While we're waiting for people who actually know something about the subject to contribute, I'll just link to the Chris Gilbert video of a blue light run. Is this the kind of relaxed progress you're talking about?
Yes, that's just the type of driving you should be aiming to achieve. It doesn't seem fast and rushed because it doesn't need to be fast and rushed, and you can clearly see the benefits of keeping a nice long following position, holding back and waiting for people to sort themselves out.While we're waiting for people who actually know something about the subject to contribute, I'll just link to the Chris Gilbert video of a blue light run. Is this the kind of relaxed progress you're talking about?
Red Devil said:
A good example of this numptiness @1:51 in the video: the (silver?) car ahead comes off the accelerator, brakes while still on the zebra crossing, and nearly comes to a halt just a few yards further on thereby causing unnecessary and avoidable hindrance to the smooth progress of the police car. I do wonder what thought process goes on in the heads of such people.
Superbly informative threads R U. I'm always learning something from each one, so please keep them coming.
Many thanks. There are a couple of examples of poor reactions in the video which I described in my original post.Superbly informative threads R U. I'm always learning something from each one, so please keep them coming.
At 00.32 you'll see a dark van emerge from the offside and then immediately pull out of the way. It was clear from their actions that the driver had seen the approaching police car, so why not just wait in the junction until it had passed?
And at 1.58, you'll see a white van pull out to pass an estate car in front. The estate car has seen the police car, but the van hasn't and pulls out to pass. This is extremely common.
R_U_LOCAL said:
The Fire Service are a little more old fashioned and tend to treat most calls as requiring an emergency response until they have arrived and assessed the incident.
I Am Not A FirePerson, but I'd have thought that was sensible rather than old fashioned - small fires can become BIG fires very, very quickly.Reg, found a really good video of London Fire Brigade's Forward Command responding in a Range Rover, video ends up with them driving the wrong way round Trafalgar Square against the flow of traffic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epME8YCNrR0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epME8YCNrR0
if every driver was to have training into what a "blue light" run driver is expecting of them, then there would be far fewer incidents involving emergency vehicles.
The video on www.bluelightaware.org.uk is very good and I advise all my pupils and anyone else who wants to, to sit and watch.
I think many blue light run drivers forget that they have to drive first, and safely, and deal with the incident when they get to the destination, this skill is harder to carry out than many imagine.
The use of the "airhorn" to bully drivers out of the way, especially at a red light goes on too frequently. They should know that "joe public" has no excuse at all to cross a stop line at a red light, but, I have seen it often in Southampton, and once where a cyclist with his ears plugged into a phone/ipod nearly was taken out as a result.
A great insight at the top of the page....again!
The video on www.bluelightaware.org.uk is very good and I advise all my pupils and anyone else who wants to, to sit and watch.
I think many blue light run drivers forget that they have to drive first, and safely, and deal with the incident when they get to the destination, this skill is harder to carry out than many imagine.
The use of the "airhorn" to bully drivers out of the way, especially at a red light goes on too frequently. They should know that "joe public" has no excuse at all to cross a stop line at a red light, but, I have seen it often in Southampton, and once where a cyclist with his ears plugged into a phone/ipod nearly was taken out as a result.
A great insight at the top of the page....again!
The old "Blue Book" Roadcraft has a passage regarding the use of two tone sirens and lights that is very relevant on this subject:
"Two tone horns, sirens, ect., are fitted to police vehicles for use when a police driver engaged upon an urgent assignment is being impeded and needs to obtain a clear passage through traffic. Most drivers on hearing the warning of an approaching emergency service vehicle will endeavor to allow precedence to it but the police driver must understand that the use of the warning instrument gives him NO PROTECTION OR RIGHT OF WAY WHATSOEVER. He must never drive at a speed faster than is safe for the conditions nor other in accordance with the instructions in this manual. His duty to the public generally, his crew and himself is quite clear in this respect."
"Two tone horns, sirens, ect., are fitted to police vehicles for use when a police driver engaged upon an urgent assignment is being impeded and needs to obtain a clear passage through traffic. Most drivers on hearing the warning of an approaching emergency service vehicle will endeavor to allow precedence to it but the police driver must understand that the use of the warning instrument gives him NO PROTECTION OR RIGHT OF WAY WHATSOEVER. He must never drive at a speed faster than is safe for the conditions nor other in accordance with the instructions in this manual. His duty to the public generally, his crew and himself is quite clear in this respect."
A good post I think and puts an emergency drivers position well. I agree with the poster re traffic lights. I often see emergency vehicles at a red light sit there with lights and sirens activated effectively pushing normal motorists over the red light without any of the protection of lights and sirens.
Great post. Many thanks R_U.
I will be doing my Ambulance 4-week course in February and all this good considered & relevant info and advice from an insider is priceless Please keep the posts coming. I always enjoy your insights.
ETA: And I know all the lyrics to the whole song!!
I will be doing my Ambulance 4-week course in February and all this good considered & relevant info and advice from an insider is priceless
Please keep the posts coming. I always enjoy your insights.ETA: And I know all the lyrics to the whole song!!
Edited by Paul.B on Friday 9th January 20:35
275Wide said:
Wow! I think it's safe to say he could not have got there a second sooner!WilliamWoollard said:
275Wide said:
Wow! I think it's safe to say he could not have got there a second sooner!(3.30 "OH s
t, it's Charing Cross, Innit") and the "STOP message" you heard in the last seconds of the video means he wasn't needed anyway.
That was real old fashioned 'Red Mist' driving because he f
ked up and lost the plot. I drove fire engines for 25 years.
Edited by karona on Sunday 11th January 07:45
karona said:
WilliamWoollard said:
275Wide said:
Wow! I think it's safe to say he could not have got there a second sooner!(3.30 "OH s
t, it's Charing Cross, Innit") and the "STOP message" you heard in the last seconds of the video means he wasn't needed anyway.
That was real old fashioned 'Red Mist' driving because he f
ked up and lost the plot. I drove fire engines for 25 years.
Edited by karona on Sunday 11th January 07:45
Extremely Fast And Dangerous driving at it's best ...
mph1977 said:
karona said:
WilliamWoollard said:
275Wide said:
Wow! I think it's safe to say he could not have got there a second sooner!(3.30 "OH s
t, it's Charing Cross, Innit") and the "STOP message" you heard in the last seconds of the video means he wasn't needed anyway.
That was real old fashioned 'Red Mist' driving because he f
ked up and lost the plot. I drove fire engines for 25 years.
Edited by karona on Sunday 11th January 07:45
Extremely Fast And Dangerous driving at it's best ...
onyx39 said:
mph1977 said:
karona said:
WilliamWoollard said:
275Wide said:
Wow! I think it's safe to say he could not have got there a second sooner!(3.30 "OH s
t, it's Charing Cross, Innit") and the "STOP message" you heard in the last seconds of the video means he wasn't needed anyway.
That was real old fashioned 'Red Mist' driving because he f
ked up and lost the plot. I drove fire engines for 25 years.
Edited by karona on Sunday 11th January 07:45
Extremely Fast And Dangerous driving at it's best ...
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