Red Light - Emergency Vehicle Defence?

[bitchstewie]

Just been out and whilst at the front of a dual lane queue at some temporary (red) lights at a junction I saw then heard the blues and twos of an ambulance at the back of the queue.

Everyone behind starts to try to part and pull across onto their respective kerbs, there's very little room to pull forward, I'm at the front of the queue and there is a kerb but there are railings so nowhere to go other than forward.

By this point I've nudged forward to the point I feel comfortable with and I'm looking in my side mirror and can see that there is plenty of space for the ambulance to get through but it's literally just sitting there immediately off my rear driver side bumper not moving with the lights and siren wailing.

What are you supposed to do and what would you do in that situation?

[bitchstewie]

Gavia said:

Because they weren't going through the gap it would suggest that it wasn't as big as the OP reckoned. I'd still move forward and make the gap bigger as long as it didn't put me into crossing traffic. Few traffic lights have cameras on them. I can only think of two in the town that I used to live and none where I currently live.

I'm pretty sure it was though of course I could have been mistaken.

As it was I went forward and did end up in the middle of the junction but the lights cycle was for oncoming traffic at that point and there was a large set of blue lights and sirens very clearly visible so whilst with hindsight I'd rather not have done so, I'm also not entirely comfortable with simply sitting there for however long it might have taken for the lights to cycle back to green.

[bitchstewie]

I was more curious how likely they would be to believe me if anything should come of it?

I'd assumed "There was a Police Car" is a pretty common excuse?