Frustrated Paramedic

[loafer123]

On my journey to the station, I see a Mazda 6 with removable blue light on top, lots of lights in the rear and grille.

He's a paramedic - I see him in uniform sometimes - but he does his best to act as if he were an unmarked police car.

He is very reluctant to let anyone overtake him, staying in lane 2 on a fast dual carriageway on the route.

This morning, having watched him tailgate a car for a few miles, I decided to overtake him on the dual carriageway.

He did, reluctantly, move over, but not until we had both reached illegal speeds by some margin.

I then pulled into lane 1, and he switched on all of his blue flashing lights.

When we reached the roundabout, he told me off for speeding via open windows, whilst I told him that if he ever used his lights to pretend to be a police officer, I would report him.

I admit I was stupid to drive so fast, but it does annoy me that this guy is behaving like this, and I would be interested in the view of professionals on here.

[loafer123]

Drumroll said:

Are you sure he is even a paramedic? There are several sad people who claim to be things they are not.

I am not certain, but I have seen him in a green uniform, so I suspect he is.

I don't want to particularly get this guy in trouble, but neither do I want him intimidating other road users - I am not one to be bullied, as he discovered this morning, but it is only because I have spotted him before that I was willing to challenge his "authority".

[loafer123]

I hadn't even considered that. There are some truly odd people out there!

[loafer123]

covboy said:

Is the car marked up as an Ambulance ?

If so, surely it should have permanent Lighting all over (as opposed to a removable light)

If it’s a first responder, I would think they would be restricted to a green light – as per Doctors.

No it is a plain black Mazda 6, 2009, one of the two exhausts is missing, so likely to be a personal, rather than officially maintained car.

He has lots of electronics atatched to the windscreen, small blue light on the roof over the drivers head, flashing lights in rear windscreen and behind grille.

[loafer123]

He kept saying "you should not be doing over xx mph"

I kept saying "what you are doing is illegal - you are an ambulanceman, not a policeman, and if you do it again, I will report you"

He didn't say anything to deny my accusation, he just kept repeating the same thing.

[loafer123]

ben5732 said:

Don't happen to have the reg do you? Quick check on the tax website would show if it's ambulance police or PLG...

Sorry, no, but I do see him fairly regularly, so will keep an eye out.

[loafer123]

Gareth79 said:

I'd agree that there are very few (if any!) ways where it's legal for somebody other than a police officer to use blue lights to signal to a member of the public for something such as speeding/bad driving.

AFAIK it's almost unheard of for medical professionals to have blue lights on a personal vehicle - indeed I think the only personal vehicles to have them are fire officers who used their own vehicles to attend incidents (although even this may not happen any more).

All I can think is that the person works for a private medical company where the managers and other staff have a fairly lax attitude to such things.

Edited by Gareth79 on Tuesday 2nd September 00:22

Certainly my senior fire officer friend has a fully liveried fire car at home when he is on call.

I also have a senior Met friend (DCI, I think) who is involved in all sorts of secret squirrel stuff, and he doesn't have lights on his car (not even really covert ones!) and he is more likely than anyone to need them.