Moved over by some sort of car

[chippy348]

Sorry for the bad title, Was on the motorway today (M54 B side near to J2) in Lane 2 following traffic which included a lorry overtaking another lorry. I noticed a older Ford Mondeo weaving behind me with just his high beam lights flashing alternatively and waving at me to move out of the way. There was no blue lights, no markings on the car, only once he was passing me that i could hear a faint siren and then noticed it was a ST model but like i said quite an old one.

Question is what type of car would it be ? and do they have the right to wave you out of the way and weave in and out of lane 1 and 2 doing so.

[Pebbles167]

Chav in an ST200 fitted a siren to move people out of the way when he's late for work?

Strange one, not heard of it before.

[rockford22]

Very similar:

A non descript and older car (a Volvo iirc) passed me on the wrong side of a pedestrian crossing nearly taking out an on-coming car a few years ago. Same situation of flashing alternate head lights. I looked over as they went past, two blokes in black, driver thanked me for moving over. Car continued to boot it down a busy highstreet.

I've always wondered what was going on!

[mybrainhurts]

Part time fireman trying to get to the fire station before the tea went cold. Obviously.

[Evanivitch]

Probably some sort of discreet security work.

Ask no questions, don't get a call from men in balaclavas.

[mybrainhurts]

You ain't seen me, right?

[WillG]

Could be fire brigade, met a chap once who was a fire sergeant or similar, he had blues and twos fitted on his own personal family wagon, which was a 10 year Galaxy or similar. Always seemed odd they let you use any old car like that.

[Loyly]

Could be a volunteer or retained firefighter. A mate of mine from traffic recalled two occasions where the local hobby-trumpton had crashed twice in embarassing fashion on the way to a 'shout'.

I know in Newcastle there is a black E60 530d and a Vauxhall Corsa that both get used for incident response when the fire brigade are out. I've seen them both coming and going from the scenes of fires. With both, you'd probably assume it were some kind of walt or the local divvy testing his Ebay repeaters if they appeared behind you on an A road.

[Rubin215]

Loyly said:

Could be a volunteer or retained firefighter. A mate of mine from traffic recalled two occasions where the local hobby-trumpton had crashed twice in embarassing fashion on the way to a 'shout'.

I know in Newcastle there is a black E60 530d and a Vauxhall Corsa that both get used for incident response when the fire brigade are out. I've seen them both coming and going from the scenes of fires. With both, you'd probably assume it were some kind of walt or the local divvy testing his Ebay repeaters if they appeared behind you on an A road.

Volunteers and retained have no legal right to use flashing headlights, blue lights or sirens/other audible things to get to the station.
Most brigades/services take a very dim view of anyone who does.

There is also no right to breaking speed limits, crossing stop-lines or passing red lights.

Crews responding are not "on duty" until they have arrived at the station and are in the fire engine.

[Evanivitch]

The fact OP mentions it had no blue lights installed or strobes (which are obvious on unmarked police cars at short range) makes me think that the flashing headlights was designed to be an extremely low profile unit and it probably used the vehicles horn instead of an installed siren.

So either a home made job, or an extremely discreet setup for security purposes.

[Loyly]

Rubin215 said:

Volunteers and retained have no legal right to use flashing headlights, blue lights or sirens/other audible things to get to the station.
Most brigades/services take a very dim view of anyone who does.

There is also no right to breaking speed limits, crossing stop-lines or passing red lights.

Crews responding are not "on duty" until they have arrived at the station and are in the fire engine.

Is that so? I thought they were authorised under S.19 like so many other road users.

[Riley Blue]

Evanivitch said:

The fact OP mentions it had no blue lights installed or strobes (which are obvious on unmarked police cars at short range) makes me think that the flashing headlights was designed to be an extremely low profile unit and it probably used the vehicles horn instead of an installed siren.

So either a home made job, or an extremely discreet setup for security purposes.

The discrete setups I've seen have concealed strobes in addition to wigs-wags. Given the description of the car by the OP, I suspect your first guess is the more likely.

[Evanivitch]

Riley Blue said:

The discrete setups I've seen have concealed strobes in addition to wigs-wags. Given the description of the car by the OP, I suspect your first guess is the more likely.

Neighbour used to have an ex police car, the strobes behind the grill were quite obvious, almost like bike reflectors. Pretty obvious to spot to a pedestrian. I'd have thought a simple wig-wags module would be much more discrete.

[WJNB]

Get registration number & report it to local Plod station. Submit webcam footage if available.

[Riley Blue]

Evanivitch said:

Neighbour used to have an ex police car, the strobes behind the grill were quite obvious, almost like bike reflectors. Pretty obvious to spot to a pedestrian. I'd have thought a simple wig-wags module would be much more discrete.

An ex-police car is not what I meant by 'discrete'.