Use of Blues and Twos + Slip road question
Discussion
First of all thanks to the BIB here and out on the road, for just doing their job. Have a not-while-driving cyber beer 
I have two questions; I was on the A20 in Essex a couple of years ago, when I was a trucker driving an artic. I was overtaking another truck and I have to admit I was taking my time, partly at my poorly judged decision, but progress was pretty good and there was very little traffic behind.
I could see in my mirror a local BiB in a city patrol car, a fiesta or something, and he was pretty close to my backend. He then stuck his blues and twos on and at that moment the truck I was overtaking swerved onto the hard shoulder while breaking pretty hard, I then pulled over without slowing down. Bib passed with blues and twos now switched off and continued his journey! Seems he didnt want to wait anymore. Is this legal?
My second question;
If I am coming onto a two lane carriagway from a sliproad and indicating to pull out and I intend to continue to go onto L2, but the car behind who is also coming down the same slip road decides he wants to go the same way but is not waiting for me, even though he is not indicating to do such.
Sureley I have right of way?
This has happend a number of times.
Who is right?
I have two questions; I was on the A20 in Essex a couple of years ago, when I was a trucker driving an artic. I was overtaking another truck and I have to admit I was taking my time, partly at my poorly judged decision, but progress was pretty good and there was very little traffic behind.
I could see in my mirror a local BiB in a city patrol car, a fiesta or something, and he was pretty close to my backend. He then stuck his blues and twos on and at that moment the truck I was overtaking swerved onto the hard shoulder while breaking pretty hard, I then pulled over without slowing down. Bib passed with blues and twos now switched off and continued his journey! Seems he didnt want to wait anymore. Is this legal?
My second question;
If I am coming onto a two lane carriagway from a sliproad and indicating to pull out and I intend to continue to go onto L2, but the car behind who is also coming down the same slip road decides he wants to go the same way but is not waiting for me, even though he is not indicating to do such.
Sureley I have right of way?
This has happend a number of times.
Who is right?
All beer happily received 
For the first query - could be a number of things but most likely are that he either wasn't impressed with your driving or that he needed to get somewhere in a hurry and didn't need the blues on for too long as the road was fairly quiet.
With regards to the second, good manners would be to drive courteously and allow the car infront to have priority but in this day and age I guess who has the fastest/beat up banger will go first.
For the first query - could be a number of things but most likely are that he either wasn't impressed with your driving or that he needed to get somewhere in a hurry and didn't need the blues on for too long as the road was fairly quiet.
With regards to the second, good manners would be to drive courteously and allow the car infront to have priority but in this day and age I guess who has the fastest/beat up banger will go first.
GTIR said:
If I am coming onto a two lane carriagway from a sliproad and indicating to pull out and I intend to continue to go onto L2, but the car behind who is also coming down the same slip road decides he wants to go the same way but is not waiting for me, even though he is not indicating to do such.
Why would you? And if it's a car behind your artic, it would be somewhat churlish to block him - Streakystreaky said:
GTIR said:
If I am coming onto a two lane carriagway from a sliproad and indicating to pull out and I intend to continue to go onto L2, but the car behind who is also coming down the same slip road decides he wants to go the same way but is not waiting for me, even though he is not indicating to do such.
Why would you? And if it's a car behind your artic, it would be somewhat churlish to block him - Streakya few weeks ago i was on the m25 and a police car came flying past me with blues and twos, he then got off at the same junction as i wanted to get off at and drove sedately , followed them for a few miles they drove like pensioners and held everybody up, would anybody like to explain that one?
jas xjr said:
a few weeks ago i was on the m25 and a police car came flying past me with blues and twos, he then got off at the same junction as i wanted to get off at and drove sedately , followed them for a few miles they drove like pensioners and held everybody up, would anybody like to explain that one?
There is of course the possibility that they were on their way to a call & were cancelled prior to their arrival with them then resuming patrol.
The fitting of flashing blue lights is governed by statutory instruments but the use is left virtually to the discretion of the particular emergency service. When ambulances first fitted blue lights front and rear of their vans, it was in fact contrary to the regulations. It took about two years for the regs to be modified.
Their main purpose is to warn other road users of the presence of the emergency services vehicle on the road. They do not, for instance, oblige anyone to pull over and stop. A (farm?) vehicle which obstructed a police car going to a shout with blue lights flashing was convicted of obstruction of police in Wales when it failed to accord precedence.
Their use varies from service to service. Some fire brigades, or at least particular stations, seem to require the lights to be on all the time whenever answering a call whereas others restrict it to emergencies. I noticed that coastguards will use their blue lights continuously.
In the case of the fiesta and the poorly judged overtaking manoeuver, the driver was probably just expressing concern at the unneccessary obstruction
A rather odd fact is that most major incident operation orders say something along the lines of the fire services control vehicle will be the only one with its blue lights on at the scene. Yeah, right.
If I ever stopped a car on a road, daylight or night, I would always put the blue lights on as this does tend to slow vehicles down and you never know what the people in the other car might do. Also, if someone tries to run away, the first instinct of any bobby is to go after them.
I was in West London in a marked transit at night when a call came out for all even-numbered patrol vehicles to attend a call for urgent assistance by Kings Cross. We responded (OJ60 - that's even, even if it wasn't a Met vehicle) and were coming over a dual carriageway flyover and the sky behind us was bright blue from the reflection of all the blue lights reflecting off the low clouds. As the borached the rise, three abreast, it was an incredible sight. When we got as near to the scene as we could get, I jumped out of the van, only to be told by a Met inspector to 'organise the parking' by which I think he meant keep a channel open for ambulances.
Once cars stopped arriving I sat in my van and updated the operational log. India 99, the Met helicopter (just the one then) put out a description of two offenders who had legged it and as I was writing it down, I could see the pair walking along the opposite footway, no more than 100 foot away. I opened the van door, strolled as casually as I could towards them so as not to spook them, got to within a car's length when from nowhere about two dozen Mets jumped on them. It was not a good night from my point of view.
Their main purpose is to warn other road users of the presence of the emergency services vehicle on the road. They do not, for instance, oblige anyone to pull over and stop. A (farm?) vehicle which obstructed a police car going to a shout with blue lights flashing was convicted of obstruction of police in Wales when it failed to accord precedence.
Their use varies from service to service. Some fire brigades, or at least particular stations, seem to require the lights to be on all the time whenever answering a call whereas others restrict it to emergencies. I noticed that coastguards will use their blue lights continuously.
In the case of the fiesta and the poorly judged overtaking manoeuver, the driver was probably just expressing concern at the unneccessary obstruction
A rather odd fact is that most major incident operation orders say something along the lines of the fire services control vehicle will be the only one with its blue lights on at the scene. Yeah, right.
If I ever stopped a car on a road, daylight or night, I would always put the blue lights on as this does tend to slow vehicles down and you never know what the people in the other car might do. Also, if someone tries to run away, the first instinct of any bobby is to go after them.
I was in West London in a marked transit at night when a call came out for all even-numbered patrol vehicles to attend a call for urgent assistance by Kings Cross. We responded (OJ60 - that's even, even if it wasn't a Met vehicle) and were coming over a dual carriageway flyover and the sky behind us was bright blue from the reflection of all the blue lights reflecting off the low clouds. As the borached the rise, three abreast, it was an incredible sight. When we got as near to the scene as we could get, I jumped out of the van, only to be told by a Met inspector to 'organise the parking' by which I think he meant keep a channel open for ambulances.
Once cars stopped arriving I sat in my van and updated the operational log. India 99, the Met helicopter (just the one then) put out a description of two offenders who had legged it and as I was writing it down, I could see the pair walking along the opposite footway, no more than 100 foot away. I opened the van door, strolled as casually as I could towards them so as not to spook them, got to within a car's length when from nowhere about two dozen Mets jumped on them. It was not a good night from my point of view.
vonhosen said:
There is of course the possibility that they were on their way to a call & were cancelled prior to their arrival with them then resuming patrol.
Happens all the time. The number of times we get calls to "30 or 40 people fighting in the street with sticks and iron bars", all units in the town start making on blues only for the first unit to arrive and report "group of 3 or 4 youths hanging about, no further units required". You then have half a dozen or more cars turn the blues off and return to whatever they were doing, which may include buying refs for the shift.Derek Smith said:
Some fire brigades, or at least particular stations, seem to require the lights to be on all the time whenever answering a call whereas others restrict it to emergencies
Absolutely! Where I work if fire have been called they will not stand down even if we arrive and find no requirement for them, and they still arrive on blues. They arrive and straight away start laying out the hoses or getting the jaws of life out, while we stand there chuckling. Their control won't even relay the message that they're not required. I think they treat it as a training exercise.AndyRw said:
Derek Smith said:
Some fire brigades, or at least particular stations, seem to require the lights to be on all the time whenever answering a call whereas others restrict it to emergencies
Absolutely! Where I work if fire have been called they will not stand down even if we arrive and find no requirement for them, and they still arrive on blues. They arrive and straight away start laying out the hoses or getting the jaws of life out, while we stand there chuckling. Their control won't even relay the message that they're not required. I think they treat it as a training exercise.This caused national repercussions - although I was unaware until called to my boss's office to be confronted by two fire chaps in full regalia and more scrambled egg than in a chicken farm on Mt Etna.
They had been 'misinformed' of what I had said but, as I'd included it on various serials I was able to bring it up and show them. I got a muffled Oh, and away they went.
I'm told thee were some minor policy changes but I don't know what these might have been. However, I stuck to my belief that, if there's no fire, then the driver should be told to stand down emergency response.
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