Red Light - Emergency Vehicle Defence?
Discussion
Gavia said:
Cold said:
Gavia said:
What cheque? I'm going to court.
Why? Why the hell would you do all that when adhering to what the law and what the majority of blue lighters suggest would mean you would never have to? Bonkers.
A police constable in uniform has the power to cause the driver of a vehicle to stop.
A police constable, for the time being engaged in the regulation of traffic, has the power to direct traffic.
There are other powers but these two are the 'main' ones.
In effect, if a police officer is directing traffic then whether they are in uniform or not is immaterial.
The question that will no doubt bother you is when is a police officer directing traffic. Good question. There are lots of stated cases but they are specific to the circumstances of the case. There has been no high court decision (to my knowledge, always happy to be corrected, I've been away) as to the definition.
If a police officer gets out of his car and comes up to you and directs you to move forward across the stop line, it is a defence to say you were directed to do so by a police officer for the time being engaged in the direction of traffic.
If a police officer is not in uniform and there are no circumstances to make you conclude, reasonably, that (s)he is a police officer then there is no way a prosecution will succeed for failing to conform to the signal of a police officer for the time being engaged in the regulation of traffic. There is an however however.
If you fail to conform to the signal of a person in civilian clothes that you have no idea whether they are a police officer or not and by doing so are involved in an accident, you might be prosecuted for careless driving. It has happened in the past.
If a police officer, in uniform or not, directs you to cross the stop line, or, as in this case, go beyond the automatic traffic signal, then you are still obliged to exercise due care. It is no defence, although significant mitigation I'd suggest, to say a police officer told me to.
There is lots and lots of case law on the subject and no one knows it all. There is always an exception.
If you refuse to assist in the free movement of an emergency vehicle because there are too many traffic lights, then I'd suggest you might well be prosecuted.
A police constable, for the time being engaged in the regulation of traffic, has the power to direct traffic.
There are other powers but these two are the 'main' ones.
In effect, if a police officer is directing traffic then whether they are in uniform or not is immaterial.
The question that will no doubt bother you is when is a police officer directing traffic. Good question. There are lots of stated cases but they are specific to the circumstances of the case. There has been no high court decision (to my knowledge, always happy to be corrected, I've been away) as to the definition.
If a police officer gets out of his car and comes up to you and directs you to move forward across the stop line, it is a defence to say you were directed to do so by a police officer for the time being engaged in the direction of traffic.
If a police officer is not in uniform and there are no circumstances to make you conclude, reasonably, that (s)he is a police officer then there is no way a prosecution will succeed for failing to conform to the signal of a police officer for the time being engaged in the regulation of traffic. There is an however however.
If you fail to conform to the signal of a person in civilian clothes that you have no idea whether they are a police officer or not and by doing so are involved in an accident, you might be prosecuted for careless driving. It has happened in the past.
If a police officer, in uniform or not, directs you to cross the stop line, or, as in this case, go beyond the automatic traffic signal, then you are still obliged to exercise due care. It is no defence, although significant mitigation I'd suggest, to say a police officer told me to.
There is lots and lots of case law on the subject and no one knows it all. There is always an exception.
If you refuse to assist in the free movement of an emergency vehicle because there are too many traffic lights, then I'd suggest you might well be prosecuted.
Gavia said:
Can someone please provide just one example of this please. It's easy to make a claim like this, but you need to support it with evidence.
Well here's the thing. You get a letter offering the points and to pay a fixed penelty or you can plead not guilty and opt to take it to court.Now in court you would be summonded for running a red light. The only real defence is to provide evidence you didn't run a red light.
Now if you state that an emergency vehicle needed to go through and you were creating a gap, you would need to provide evidence to substatiate this claim. Not everyone will have video / photographic evidence of an emergency vehicle going through the lights so they will have no defence
Also, there's no gauantee that the judge will drop it. So if you opt to go to court there is a risk of potentially more points and a bigger fine, and most just accept the FPN as all the legal "experts" with experience on Pepipoo would advise going to court for the reasons stated above.
Read plenty of cases there where this happened.
I'm not going to spend the next hour on google trying to sift through hundreds of articles to find someone where the above has happened to.
Gavia said:
Side issue, but you've done someing amazing. It's very frustrating seeing people type "of" when the word is "have" e.g. Should of, when the phrase is should have, or should've. However, you've now won first prize by typing "plenty have people", when it's "plenty of people". I'll ignore the "went through" and assume your from Glasgow where they use went instead of gone all the time.
Not from Glasgow but in it now and again.You're btw
Gavia said:
vonhosen said:
Who?
And what does that matter to those who decide they are staying put?
I'm not sure what you're arguing now. And what does that matter to those who decide they are staying put?
The court is who. It matters. It one jot to those staying lit but I will continue see them as selfish sods.
They see risks in going over the line as significant enough for them not to go over it.
The advice from the authorities is to not go over & the training of blue light users is to not encourage people to go over.
In the circumstances that you view those who choose not to go over as selfish sods is unlikely, I suspect, to concern them.
As I said, each to their own.
Getting annoyed about the personal choices of others appears to be adversely affecting you (vexing you) rather than them.
You are free to make your choice & they free to make theirs.
I don't blame you for your choice & I don't blame them for theirs. It is what it is, an imperfect world. Damned (or perhaps correct) if you do, damned (or perhaps correct) if you don't.
Derek Smith said:
I
If you fail to conform to the signal of a person in civilian clothes that you have no idea whether they are a police officer or not and by doing so are involved in an accident, you might be prosecuted for careless driving. It has happened in the past.
Thats probably answered a question on my mind. We have an establishment in my road (a very busy urban road) that occasionally has quite a congregation turn up for special events, resulting in a lot of street parking once the "regular" car park is full. I tried to go past one evening when events were closing and there was a gentleman in dayglow jacket standing in the middle of the road halting traffic to allow egress from their car park. I'd wondered how this stood legally If you fail to conform to the signal of a person in civilian clothes that you have no idea whether they are a police officer or not and by doing so are involved in an accident, you might be prosecuted for careless driving. It has happened in the past.
covboy said:
Thats probably answered a question on my mind. We have an establishment in my road (a very busy urban road) that occasionally has quite a congregation turn up for special events, resulting in a lot of street parking once the "regular" car park is full. I tried to go past one evening when events were closing and there was a gentleman in dayglow jacket standing in the middle of the road halting traffic to allow egress from their car park. I'd wondered how this stood legally
If the person is not authorised to direct traffic:You are under no legal obligation to conform to his directions. He has no authority to direct traffic so you cannot be prosecuted for failing to conform to the directions. However, if someone is directing traffic around an obstruction or for traffic control you might, just might, be prosecuted for careless. The court might feel that your actions were not those of a responsible driver.
There was a case down my way where a chap felt he was too important to stop when directed to do so by the crew of a recovery vehicle. This meant that the car being recovered had to be stopped and some damage was caused to two vehicles, one of which was the recovered vehicle. The chap did stop then, gave the crew a bit of a mouthful and they reported the incident to the police at the same time they reported the RTA. The PC felt the urge to act and submitted a file, which was checked by the CPS and given the go-ahead for a careless.
It went to the magistrates' court who were of the same mind as the CPS. There was talk of an appeal, the bloke was quite rich, but nothing came of it. I would have heard.
The circumstances were that the road was quite narrow, just wide enough for two lorries to pass. It was the wee smalls and the recovery vehicle was lifting a damaged vehicle. The offender came along, the operator of the lift stopped the lift, the offender slowed (perhaps stopped, versions differed) and then carried on driving, having to go around the chap directing traffic despite it being obvious what was going on. The operator thought that the chap had conceded precedence and had just started to lift the vehicle again when the offender moved off. The operator then felt he had to hit the stop button. The lifted vehicle swung a little and it damaged another vehicle which had been involved in the accident but all occupants had left. It was only minor damage.
The driver then, realising that the gap had just narrowed and he'd have to drive under the lifted vehicle, stopped and started to give a bit of verbal.
There was a suggestion of failing to exchange details after an accident but there was insufficient evidence to show the offender knew of the damage.
It was night but the scene was well illuminated and there were the required hazard warning signs.
Despite the CPS supporting careless, that does not necessarily mean that if you ignore the directions of a non-authorised person you are guilty of the offence of careless.
When the file went through my office I added details of a case I thought was similar. A police officer not in uniform had signalled to the driver of a car to go right but the chap ignored him or her and carried straight on, causing the officer to have to jump out of the way.
The defence was that the driver did not believe that it was a police officer (this at court, at the scene the suggestion was he believed he did not have to obey anyone in civilian clothes) this despite there being fire service and an ambulance clearly in view. The court found that there was a case of careless proven but they dropped the 'failing to conform', the reason given was that as it came from the same facts, it was bad for duplicity. So it wasn't only my force.
The depressing thing here is how the fear of prosecution for what is more than likely a trivial offence in the vast majority of cases, whether an emergency vehicle is involved or not, can now impact directly on the safety of the public when those threatening prosecution are doing so on the grounds of public safety. w
kers.
I would move aside for an emergency vehicle, much as I would have done 25 years ago when there was no risk of prosecution. I won't be responsible for delaying a genuine emergency for fear of falling foul of what is essentially authoritarian nonsense.
How did we ever get here?
kers.I would move aside for an emergency vehicle, much as I would have done 25 years ago when there was no risk of prosecution. I won't be responsible for delaying a genuine emergency for fear of falling foul of what is essentially authoritarian nonsense.
How did we ever get here?
vonhosen said:
You see risks & potential inconvenience in going over the line as small, but they exist nevertheless.
They see risks in going over the line as significant enough for them not to go over it.
The advice from the authorities is to not go over & the training of blue light users is to not encourage people to go over.
In the circumstances that you view those who choose not to go over as selfish sods is unlikely, I suspect, to concern them.
As I said, each to their own.
Getting annoyed about the personal choices of others appears to be adversely affecting you (vexing you) rather than them.
You are free to make your choice & they free to make theirs.
I don't blame you for your choice & I don't blame them for theirs. It is what it is, an imperfect world. Damned (or perhaps correct) if you do, damned (or perhaps correct) if you don't.
Disagreeing with people is not the same as getting annoyed. I am disagreeing, not getting annoyed. They see risks in going over the line as significant enough for them not to go over it.
The advice from the authorities is to not go over & the training of blue light users is to not encourage people to go over.
In the circumstances that you view those who choose not to go over as selfish sods is unlikely, I suspect, to concern them.
As I said, each to their own.
Getting annoyed about the personal choices of others appears to be adversely affecting you (vexing you) rather than them.
You are free to make your choice & they free to make theirs.
I don't blame you for your choice & I don't blame them for theirs. It is what it is, an imperfect world. Damned (or perhaps correct) if you do, damned (or perhaps correct) if you don't.
I've said that I don't expect them to change their minds, nor will I change mine. I see little risk in moving forward over a Stop line when there is space to do so as long as I don't move into crossing traffic. If you look at my earlier posts you'll see that I stated that several times. However, I would rather sleep sound in the knowledge that I didn't potentially risk someone else's life over my alloys or miniscule chance of being caught jumping a red light.
We are very sorry Mrs Smith, your husband Graham died in the ambulance en route to A&E after suffering a cardiac arrest at work. Unfortunately the ambulance was held up unnecessarily at a junction for several minutes where, although there was adequate space to do so, other vehicles were not prepared to make way for the emergency vehicle because the junction in question is monitored by red light cameras and everybody currently drives in a state of permanent paranoia as a result of the State sponsored persecution of motorists for petty contrived infractions.
Try Match.com. There are plenty more fish in the sea.
Try Match.com. There are plenty more fish in the sea.
cmaguire said:
We are very sorry Mrs Smith, your husband Graham died in the ambulance en route to A&E after suffering a cardiac arrest at work. Unfortunately the ambulance was held up unnecessarily at a junction for several minutes where, although there was adequate space to do so, other vehicles were not prepared to make way for the emergency vehicle because the junction in question is monitored by red light cameras and everybody currently drives in a state of permanent paranoia as a result of the State sponsored persecution of motorists for petty contrived infractions.
Try Match.com. There are plenty more fish in the sea.
Very few on going arrests are transported. We resus on scene until we get them back or it is called. We only transport patients after an arrest once they are stable. In this case, a minute or so at some lights isn't going to make much difference.Try Match.com. There are plenty more fish in the sea.
cmaguire said:
I won't be responsible for delaying a genuine emergency for fear of falling foul of what is essentially authoritarian nonsense.
Absolutely! And if it ends with three points then so be it.However my licence is clean and have a company car so 3pts will have no personal effect. Others have very different circumstances; on 9pts and facing a totting up ban for one more offence might well think different.
JumboBeef said:
Very few on going arrests are transported. We resus on scene until we get them back or it is called. We only transport patients after an arrest once they are stable. In this case, a minute or so at some lights isn't going to make much difference.
You can substitute cardiac arrest with something that does matter then, the principle is the issue.The scenario whereby emergency vehicles are unnecessarily obstructed for fear of poxy FPN's or the like is so insane it's barely credible. If we work on the principle that the use of sirens/blue lights is justified then pointlessly obstructing an emergency vehicle should actually be the criminal offence.
Engineer792 said:
It may help the situation if they changed red light and bus lane cameras so that they take a series of photos, or even a short video, instead of a single photo.
This would give context to the evidence, and enable a properly informed decision to be made on whether or not to prosecute.
As that is unlikely to benefit anyone other than the defendent (or the poor bThis would give context to the evidence, and enable a properly informed decision to be made on whether or not to prosecute.
d relying on the emergency vehicle if relevant) then in view of the attitude the authorities exhibit when eagerly dishing the penalties out.....it won't happen.cmaguire said:
Engineer792 said:
It may help the situation if they changed red light and bus lane cameras so that they take a series of photos, or even a short video, instead of a single photo.
This would give context to the evidence, and enable a properly informed decision to be made on whether or not to prosecute.
As that is unlikely to benefit anyone other than the defendent (or the poor bThis would give context to the evidence, and enable a properly informed decision to be made on whether or not to prosecute.
d relying on the emergency vehicle if relevant) then in view of the attitude the authorities exhibit when eagerly dishing the penalties out.....it won't happen.Retroman said:
Gavia said:
Can someone please provide just one example of this please. It's easy to make a claim like this, but you need to support it with evidence.
Well here's the thing. You get a letter offering the points and to pay a fixed penelty or you can plead not guilty and opt to take it to court.Now in court you would be summonded for running a red light. The only real defence is to provide evidence you didn't run a red light.
Now if you state that an emergency vehicle needed to go through and you were creating a gap, you would need to provide evidence to substatiate this claim. Not everyone will have video / photographic evidence of an emergency vehicle going through the lights so they will have no defence
Also, there's no gauantee that the judge will drop it. So if you opt to go to court there is a risk of potentially more points and a bigger fine, and most just accept the FPN as all the legal "experts" with experience on Pepipoo would advise going to court for the reasons stated above.
Read plenty of cases there where this happened.
I'm not going to spend the next hour on google trying to sift through hundreds of articles to find someone where the above has happened to.
Gavia said:
Side issue, but you've done someing amazing. It's very frustrating seeing people type "of" when the word is "have" e.g. Should of, when the phrase is should have, or should've. However, you've now won first prize by typing "plenty have people", when it's "plenty of people". I'll ignore the "went through" and assume your from Glasgow where they use went instead of gone all the time.
Not from Glasgow but in it now and again.You're btw
1. The emergency vehicle may be in the photo
2. The emergency vehicle would have their own photo. Request this from the Speed Camera people and / or request it of the relevant emergency service
3. If the extreme happens and they go through on green, ask for the drivers log from the emergency service / vehicle tracking
If you're that paranoid, the getting the registration number of the emergency vehicle would not be difficult as it passed by.
In my opinion the reason people don't challenge these is that their story doesn't stack up, just as people claim to have been done for 31mph when they haven't.
Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff