# Do people really bang on the ambulance door? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 30, 2013, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-really-bang-on-the-ambulance-door/664905 "2013-07-30T14:34:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![X.L.Lent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a5b964/32.png) [@X.L.Lent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X.L.Lent)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-really-bang-on-the-ambulance-door/664905/21 "2013-08-06T05:05:49Z")
While I have never driven an ambulance, I drove a small truck about 20 years ago. The Mexican migrants who worked in our warehouse would tap repeatedly and then pound once or twice on the side of the truck as I backed up to the warehouse door. The tapping meant “keep going” or “keep backing up”; the pounding meant “stop now.” I always closed up the back of the truck myself so I don’t know if they had a signal for “The rear door is closed and you can go now.” ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-really-bang-on-the-ambulance-door/664905/22 "2013-08-07T04:15:45Z")
I got an ambulance ride last March, and after loading me in someone did in fact bang on the door to let the driver know I was in there and secured. /the whole trip was a fiasco, medically and financially, but I’ve posted about that earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-really-bang-on-the-ambulance-door/664905/23 "2013-08-12T09:51:46Z")
> [@janeslogin](#): > > Back in the days of coin operated slots the bartenders would rap twice on the bar with a coin when a transaction was completed. ??? Slots? Transaction? On the old two-man crew trams here, passengers would ring the bell once to request a stop. The conductor would ring twice when the all exiting passengers were out, and clear. And, rarely, would ring three times if an immediate stop was required. For example, if he signaled ‘go’, and the lady who just got off turned around to grab her kid/babby buggy/pram as the tram took off with her child, that would be an immediate-stop situation. This kind of signalling used to be standard on trains/cranes/telephones/mines/factories everywhere a phone or radio is used now, and from what I’ve seen, the codes were fairly standard too: 1 stop, 2 go. 1 stop, 2 hoist ---
**Author:** ![Sarah2873](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Sarah2873](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarah2873)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-really-bang-on-the-ambulance-door/664905/24 "2014-02-06T21:45:12Z")
> [@Dingbang](#): > > On TV and in the movies, you see this all the time: Someone is loaded into an ambulance, the doors are closed, and the person outside bangs on the door a couple times to signal the driver is good to go. > > Does that really happen? He he my friend works with the ambulance crew and they all do this all the time… just to take the p\*ss out of what they do in the movies! 😃 Sarah ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-really-bang-on-the-ambulance-door/664905/25 "2014-02-07T00:09:15Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > This kind of signalling used to be standard on trains/cranes/telephones/mines/factories everywhere a phone or radio is used now, and from what I’ve seen, the codes were fairly standard too: 1 stop, 2 go. 1 stop, 2 hoist It certainly was in the UK on busses with a conductor. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-really-bang-on-the-ambulance-door/664905/26 "2014-02-07T03:00:36Z")
> [@Sarah2873](#): > > He he my friend works with the ambulance crew and they all do this all the time… just to take the p\*ss out of what they do in the movies! 😃 > > Sarah That’s like what they said about gangster films in the 1930s. Real-life gangsters would copy the speech they heard at the movies until it just became standard. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-people-really-bang-on-the-ambulance-door/664905.md?page=1)