Making way for emergency services
Discussion
This rant is dedicated to the confounding lady in the blue Celica VVTi "LK--EEO" - who along with other fellow motorists were stuck southbound on the A3 this morning, waiting to get round the Devils Punchbowl after the jack knifed lorry incident.
Sat in ones car, you hear the distant sound of an emergency service vehicle behind, traffic is at a standstill, but in a well rehearsed fashion, all likeminded motorists prepare to take evasive action by edging towards respective kerbs to allow a "parting of the ways" - a familiar central channel that facilitates unimpeded progress for our oft unsung heroes.
BUT NOT HER... OH NO, SHE HAS OTHER PLANS!!... she is in the outside lane, initially she appears to copy everyone else by heading towards the kerb, but then inexplicably she then changes her mind and heads towards the adjacent lane of stationary traffic FFS!! The ambulance arrives and she is straddling both lanes at 45 degrees with nowhere to go!!
I just pray that the several minutes (seemed more like ten) that she held up that ambulance, didn't make the difference between life and death for the unfortunate occupant, or the desperate patient awaiting its arrival!!
Two hours later I am still confounded by her action and my neck aches from constantly shaking my head!
NB:- This is not intended as a rant towards female motorists and their genetic shortage of spatial awareness
... I am aware that some motorists, irrespective of gender are prone to panic attacks at the very sound of approaching sirens.
Ta,... I feel better now.... and my head has finally stopped shaking.
apprentice
Sat in ones car, you hear the distant sound of an emergency service vehicle behind, traffic is at a standstill, but in a well rehearsed fashion, all likeminded motorists prepare to take evasive action by edging towards respective kerbs to allow a "parting of the ways" - a familiar central channel that facilitates unimpeded progress for our oft unsung heroes.
BUT NOT HER... OH NO, SHE HAS OTHER PLANS!!... she is in the outside lane, initially she appears to copy everyone else by heading towards the kerb, but then inexplicably she then changes her mind and heads towards the adjacent lane of stationary traffic FFS!! The ambulance arrives and she is straddling both lanes at 45 degrees with nowhere to go!!
I just pray that the several minutes (seemed more like ten) that she held up that ambulance, didn't make the difference between life and death for the unfortunate occupant, or the desperate patient awaiting its arrival!!
Two hours later I am still confounded by her action and my neck aches from constantly shaking my head!
NB:- This is not intended as a rant towards female motorists and their genetic shortage of spatial awareness
... I am aware that some motorists, irrespective of gender are prone to panic attacks at the very sound of approaching sirens. Ta,... I feel better now.... and my head has finally stopped shaking.
apprentice
I will never forget:
Basingstoke about two years ago. The wife and I are in the Porsche. We're in a queue waiting to get to a roundabout so we can turn right and enjoy a tour down the A339 to Alton.
We hear the sirens.
Me and everyone else starts looking in the rear view mirrors and around and about. I see, in the mirror, the blue light atop an ENORMOUS
ING GREAT FIRE ENGINE! So I, and everyone else bar the knobber behind me, dives for the verge to clear a space for the ENORMOUS ING GREAT FIRE ENGINE it's completely impossible to miss.
The knobber behind looks at my behavour in total bemusement, pulls out and, holding up the ENORMOUSING GREAT FIRE ENGINE, tries to pass me and in doing so blocks the road. With some judicious manouevering I back up a bit, the guy in front squeezes forward a bit. The knobber is able to pull in between us.
So.
1) The bloke MUST have been deaf. Surely. Must have been. My hearing is shite (years in my yoof spent in front a Marshall Stack that went up to 11) and I heard the EXTRAORDINARILY LOUD SIREN!
2) What the was the bloke thinking. That all the cars in front were pulling over to let him past? Like he's ing royalty or something?
3) Didn't he look in his mirror before pulling out and SEE the ENORMOUSING GREAT FIRE ENGINE bearing down on him at speed?
Knobber. Utter, utter knobber. All done, I believe, because
1) He WAS listening to music so loud even a siren couldn't penetrate it.
2) Mirrors are for other people, innit.
So I feel your pain, mate. Oh yes. Disgraceful what some people think is OK...
Basingstoke about two years ago. The wife and I are in the Porsche. We're in a queue waiting to get to a roundabout so we can turn right and enjoy a tour down the A339 to Alton.
We hear the sirens.
Me and everyone else starts looking in the rear view mirrors and around and about. I see, in the mirror, the blue light atop an ENORMOUS
ING GREAT FIRE ENGINE! So I, and everyone else bar the knobber behind me, dives for the verge to clear a space for the ENORMOUS ING GREAT FIRE ENGINE it's completely impossible to miss. The knobber behind looks at my behavour in total bemusement, pulls out and, holding up the ENORMOUS
ING GREAT FIRE ENGINE, tries to pass me and in doing so blocks the road. With some judicious manouevering I back up a bit, the guy in front squeezes forward a bit. The knobber is able to pull in between us. So.
1) The bloke MUST have been deaf. Surely. Must have been. My hearing is shite (years in my yoof spent in front a Marshall Stack that went up to 11) and I heard the EXTRAORDINARILY LOUD SIREN!
2) What the
was the bloke thinking. That all the cars in front were pulling over to let him past? Like he's ing royalty or something? 3) Didn't he look in his mirror before pulling out and SEE the ENORMOUS
ING GREAT FIRE ENGINE bearing down on him at speed? Knobber. Utter, utter knobber. All done, I believe, because
1) He WAS listening to music so loud even a siren couldn't penetrate it.
2) Mirrors are for other people, innit.
So I feel your pain, mate. Oh yes. Disgraceful what some people think is OK...
Braking hard on sight of blue lights, stopping in the third lane when everyone else goes to the nearside .... stopping next to traffic islands, stopping on the brow of a bridge and expecting the police driver to consult their crystal ball as to whats the other side (then getting angry with said police driver when they sit behind and won't overtake) along with general panic and hysteria ...... it is amazing the effect lights and siren have on some motorists.
Many, infact most motorists are excellent - but there is always one on every blue light run whose driving just defies belief! Police and other emergency service drivers get used to it - people on attachments usually can't believe what they see
Many, infact most motorists are excellent - but there is always one on every blue light run whose driving just defies belief! Police and other emergency service drivers get used to it - people on attachments usually can't believe what they see
I had one the other week, in Colchester.
Single lane road, I see a large red fire engine with big blue flashing lights in the distance ahead of me. To make life easy, I just signal, and stop, as do the cars behind me to their credit. But the lady coming the other way, with said big red noisy flashing machine? Nope, she drives on nice and slowly. That is, until she gets alongside me, wherein she stops, completely blocking the road. Now, 20ft earlier, Engine could have got through, 50ft further down the road, engine could get through. But no. So instead the engine has to slow right down and crawl past us.
F**kwits some people.
Single lane road, I see a large red fire engine with big blue flashing lights in the distance ahead of me. To make life easy, I just signal, and stop, as do the cars behind me to their credit. But the lady coming the other way, with said big red noisy flashing machine? Nope, she drives on nice and slowly. That is, until she gets alongside me, wherein she stops, completely blocking the road. Now, 20ft earlier, Engine could have got through, 50ft further down the road, engine could get through. But no. So instead the engine has to slow right down and crawl past us.
F**kwits some people.
You all know it is an offence to obstruct Police.
With effect from 20th February 2007 under The Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2007 it will also be an offence to obstruct Ambulance/Fire Brigade on the way to do their business.
Max Fine £5000
Sort of puts a different complex of shooting the lights to get out of the way of the big red giant. Stop and maybe obstruct, shoot and fail to conform?
dvd
With effect from 20th February 2007 under The Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2007 it will also be an offence to obstruct Ambulance/Fire Brigade on the way to do their business.
Max Fine £5000
Sort of puts a different complex of shooting the lights to get out of the way of the big red giant. Stop and maybe obstruct, shoot and fail to conform?
dvd
Dwight VanDriver said:
You all know it is an offence to obstruct Police.
With effect from 20th February 2007 under The Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2007 it will also be an offence to obstruct Ambulance/Fire Brigade on the way to do their business.
Max Fine £5000
Sort of puts a different complex of shooting the lights to get out of the way of the big red giant. Stop and maybe obstruct, shoot and fail to conform?
dvd
With effect from 20th February 2007 under The Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2007 it will also be an offence to obstruct Ambulance/Fire Brigade on the way to do their business.
Max Fine £5000
Sort of puts a different complex of shooting the lights to get out of the way of the big red giant. Stop and maybe obstruct, shoot and fail to conform?
dvd
So, you're fined if you do and you're also fined if you don't? You've gotta hand it to that Gordon, he's really thought of everything.
Dwight VanDriver said:
You all know it is an offence to obstruct Police.
With effect from 20th February 2007 under The Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2007 it will also be an offence to obstruct Ambulance/Fire Brigade on the way to do their business.
Max Fine £5000
Sort of puts a different complex of shooting the lights to get out of the way of the big red giant. Stop and maybe obstruct, shoot and fail to conform?
dvd
With effect from 20th February 2007 under The Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2007 it will also be an offence to obstruct Ambulance/Fire Brigade on the way to do their business.
Max Fine £5000
Sort of puts a different complex of shooting the lights to get out of the way of the big red giant. Stop and maybe obstruct, shoot and fail to conform?
dvd
I think this comes from in places like london where in some of the residential streets owners of homes park their cars to prevent lorries using their roads as a rat run. Problem is fire engines are also the same width as lorries. There was a program about it a while ago and the fire brigade wanted to prosecute people for impeding their way. Look like they have got their wish
Dwight VanDriver said:
You all know it is an offence to obstruct Police.
With effect from 20th February 2007 under The Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2007 it will also be an offence to obstruct Ambulance/Fire Brigade on the way to do their business.
Max Fine £5000
Sort of puts a different complex of shooting the lights to get out of the way of the big red giant. Stop and maybe obstruct, shoot and fail to conform?
dvd
With effect from 20th February 2007 under The Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2007 it will also be an offence to obstruct Ambulance/Fire Brigade on the way to do their business.
Max Fine £5000
Sort of puts a different complex of shooting the lights to get out of the way of the big red giant. Stop and maybe obstruct, shoot and fail to conform?
dvd
So does this mean I might have to go through a red light so as not to impede amulance or Firebrigade?Which law would take precedence?
jasandjules said:
Sign the petition on the No.10 website in respect of emergencies and red lights....
Thanks for that, didn't know it existed. Here it is:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Emergencie
Only 49 signatures and it expires on 21st February. Please everyone, whatever you think about cameras et al, this is surely one of the most unfair things that is currently happening to motorists. If we get enough signatures, the government will have to respond, and I would like to see them weasel out of this one.
chrispy porker said:
I've seen cases of them just ramming cars out of the way. Gently of course. Actually I used to use the fire engine as a good definition of obstruction. If a fire engine couldn't get past, have a ticket.
I take it it is OK to get out of the way for a fire engine but not a police car then? Is that the general attitude?
chrispy porker said:
chrispy porker said:
I've seen cases of them just ramming cars out of the way. Gently of course. Actually I used to use the fire engine as a good definition of obstruction. If a fire engine couldn't get past, have a ticket.
I take it it is OK to get out of the way for a fire engine but not a police car then? Is that the general attitude?
Surely the fact that people are signing against means the opposite? That said, the fact that Fire and Ambulancemen are always on our side and, by and large, the majority of police seem to be aching to punish us for something...
Edited by Calorus on Friday 9th February 01:42
Although discussed already,
WHAT happens when you shoot a red light which has a camera......
and you have 9 points !
not everything is black and white !
Sort of puts a different complex of shooting the lights to get out of the way of the big red giant. Stop and maybe obstruct, shoot and fail to conform?
dvd
WHAT happens when you shoot a red light which has a camera......
and you have 9 points !
not everything is black and white !
Dwight VanDriver said:
Sort of puts a different complex of shooting the lights to get out of the way of the big red giant. Stop and maybe obstruct, shoot and fail to conform?
dvd
chrispy porker said:
I take it it is OK to get out of the way for a fire engine but not a police car then? Is that the general attitude?
Depends if they are on a call or not, which very often I think most people doubt.
Scraggles said:
recall the case of plod trying to get past some guy, he jumps red light and gets 3 points and £60..
If that's the way the law is going to work, then CP I'm afraid so. Don't expect anything from people that the establishment is buggering up the arse at every opportunity.....
Edited by nobleguy on Friday 9th February 13:32
The worst case of this i ever saw was a long line of moving traffic leaving Hanley coming up to a roundabout and all cars pulled over as at the top of the hill we were decending we saw blue flashing lights of an ambulance, the ignorant bu**er in a ridicolously fibre glassed bodied corsa decided it was the perfect oppurtunity to show us the power of his motor and pulled out to overtake the whole line of motorists who had pulled to one side only to cause the ambulance to have to swerve to avoid him, luckily there was a gap left by the other opposite lane of traffic- it seems he is both deaf and blind- these are the people we need to get off the roads of Britain.
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