>Is everybody in this thread being needlessly pedantic, or is there really confusion about what police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances look like?
In my OP I don’t mean to suggest any confusion about what these vehicles look like, though now that you ask I think it would be helpful if they were painted red the way they used to be. I’m often uncertain whether an official-looking vehicle with lights on the top is an emergency vehicle, and I don’t even know exactly what “authorized emergency vehicle” means.
My confusion was about when I’m expected to pull over for them. For example, in the cases where I saw ambulances with just a few flashing lights go into convenience stores to shop, IIRC the flashing lights were smallish yellow ones on the front and probably sides and rear (though I have to say I’m not sure). After reading all this, I think I probably wasn’t expected to pull over, though I’m erring on the side of pulling over for them.
If there were 50 other drivers pulling over, I would pull over. Sometimes, though, there aren’t many other cars in the right position to be deciding cases, and certainly it would be better to know what I’m supposed to do as soon as I see the flashing lights and without trying to copy everybody else. Besides, I’m curious how everybody else knew.
So it’s impossible for it to be around a corner, over the brow of a hill, or in fog, so that the siren is heard or lights seen before the vehicle is visible? Shall we insist that all emergencies occur during daylight and on straight level roads?
Napier - just wanted to say that as a fellow driver in the mid-Atlantic, I agree that it’s not always clear when to pull over. Around here (the DC region), there are a LOT of emergency-like vehicles, a lot of congested traffic, and a lot of road-ragey drivers. Downtown there are also a lot of motorcades, which try people’s patience. (And the traffic adjustments that go along with protest marches or other events on the mall.) I think all that adds up to a lot of apathy about vehicles with lights, especially when pulling over means that you’ll miss the green light or whatever. I do my best to pull over, but it seems to me that pulling over when no one else intends to is not necessarily a good idea.
In some jurisdictions tow trucks do roll as emergency vehicles and will be lighted accordingly. Some areas of the country have sparse emergency resources, tow trucks are naturals to carry some basic extrication gear as they already have the winches and or hydraulic systems for lifting and towing.
>I do my best to pull over, but it seems to me that pulling over when no one else intends to is not necessarily a good idea.
Why, thank you, BetsQ, for your entire post.
I also do my best to pull over. Let me emphasize that. In fact I have a pleasant daydream in which I happen to get the chance to help in some more substantial way in an emergency. I think the people in emergency vehicles generally tend to be heros of some sort.
I am only confused and increasingly irritated that what should have been a simple and fast and above all clear communication seems to me to have been spoiled. All I want to accomplish is to drive the way I’m supposed to, including getting out of the way of emergency vehicles. They were once red with red lights on top. What was wrong with that? It was an agreed-upon symbolic meaning, conveying one bit of information. One of the only ways it could be spoiled is to keep changing and complicating it, and the Wikipedia article someone kindly linked seems to demonstrate that it has been, more or less.
OK, so, the one situation I’ve been honestly confused in: if there’s an ambulance behind me with about 50 lights, of which about 5 or 10 are flashing yellow and the rest dark, and no siren - am I supposed to pull over or not? Maybe getting this cleared up will have to count as a successful thread for me.
Ignore this, this is dangerous. There are zero jurisdictions where this would be considered prudent or legal. There are no exceptions that I am aware of that allow normal vehicles to run red lights. Lights and siren operation is a way of asking for right of way, not a guarentee of it. If an ambulance blows through a red light and is involved in an accident, it is generally the ambulances fault. There are way too many variables on the part of other drivers to assume.
We were taught to make eye contact with every vehicle a an intersection, it only takes a second or two, look around and make sure everyone is looking at you, if someone is not, you wait till he looks at you, because a deaf driver or one blasting his radio cannot hear your siren.
The importance of this can’t be overestimated, not only for the drivers of emergency vehicles, but for ALL drivers. It’s amazing what information can be gleaned from a fraction of a second of meeting eyes with another driver. I believe there would be a dramatic decrease in accidents if everyone used eye contact properly. And don’t even get me started on deep window tinting…
I’ll add that when I run a red light, I do this too, and also I’m making AS MUCH NOISE as I can regardless of the time of day. All of my lights are already on.
The first time I don’t stop and proceed through a red light is the day the unit gets nailed.
I don’t think the two of you are talking about exactly the same thing. I’ve often witnessed ambulances requesting regular vehicles to move into the intersection when there isn’t any other way for the ambulance to get through. I didn’t think that EmAnJ’s comment was that you should blow through an intersection to make way for an emergency vehicle, but that you should be willing to move wherever you can – safely – to make way when the need is present. I have seen ambulance drivers have to wail on their horns and yell at people over the loudspeakers to get out of the way because they’ll just stop and freeze without thinking.
In some communities where I’ve lived, the crew will “whoop” the siren and gesture you to drive where they want you to go (including through the intersection). In others, they have a broadcast system and may announce something like, “White Accord–pull through and over.”
Former EMT and ambulance driver adding to VunderBob’s great post. There is no middle ground. You run lights because you need to. Code 3 is no lights, no siren. ( or is it Code 1? Hmm. One of 'em. ).
No sliding scale. Unless there is a Jersey Barrier or metal barrier, I ease over even if the rig is coming towards me- how many times did I thread the needle down the center stripes because traffic wouldn’t move over for me?
On the far end of the scale is the jerk-offs cited in the O.P. You can leave lights on when illegally parking at a storefront or other building ( office, school, home ) to indicate that you are responding actively to a call. Did you SEE them inside, ordering coffee opposed to responding to a call? If they really were abusing the lights to do a coffee stop, write down the number of the rig, the name on the side and call your Dept. of Health. They will be investigated and cited. Running at speed with lights without cause is a violation. The EMT can lose their card, the agency can be cited and fined. ( These are only NY State rules, since that is where I practiced. ) BearFlag, in New York State the light bars have a variety of colors. The light bar on a larger bus cannot possibly face backwards, since it is mounted above the cab roof and that level is LOWER than the roof line of the main back of the bus. Ergo, the lights mounted on an ambulance light bar face forwards when they are rotating or fixed and flashing.
EDTA: Blow a red light, risk dying. Simple. If I have any emergency vehiclel moving up on me and I’m at a light, I do one of two things:
Ease onto the shoulder/parking lane.
Ease diagonally into the intersection, almost into a turn, to let them by. Going straight into the intersection may insure you never get home at all. Bad… bad.
Cartooniverse
As is often the case on these types of subjects, I’m in 100% agreement with drachillix. You are not permitted to pass through an intersection contrary to the signal on the “order” of a fire engine or ambulance. A police officer may, and at his own risk, enter the intersection and direct traffic to allow people to run the red light. That’s it. Other emergency vehicles do not have that authoritity.
Every time I have driven an emergency vehicle (fire engine or ambulance) into an intersection, with lights and siren operating, and have seen someone dash through the light to “get out of my way,” I have watched my family’s prosperity flash before my eyes. I didn’t tell you to pull into the intersection, you chose to do it yourself. The law says pull to the right. You pulled forward. After coming to a complete stop, I’m carefully proceeding into the intersection in a 42 foot long, 12 foot tall, 34 ton white (yes, white) fire engine with hundreds of watts of red and white lights shining in every direction and a 124 decibel noisemaker on the front bumper. You are in a Camry darting into crossways traffic. No one is looking at you, they’re looking at me. I’m looking back at them to make sure they really do see me, and are not going to drive into me. They are going to hit you. And your attorney is going to come after my house and savings because none of it would have happened if I didn’t show up first. And I can’t go to the original call, now I get to help you and send someone else to the first call.
Pull to the right (or left if you were on the left side of a multilane one-way street or a multilane street with an uncrossable median or jersey barrier) and stay there. I will get around you. I will not pull up behind your car and surprise you with an air horn. I will not push your car out of the way. I may, in fact, shut my siren off and wait for the light to change. What is the hurry that I can’t wait that extra 15 seconds in traffic? The cars will move again, they always do. If I smack into you, its going to be at least 20 minutes before I get where I need to go, if it’s just me scraping a fender. I would prefer not to wreck your car or my fire engine, or worse, injure or kill you or someone in my truck. Responsible emergency vehicle operators (of which I consider myself and 97% of other drivers) will do what they can to get to the scene smoothly*. Do what you can to let me get past, but please, please, please, do not endanger yourself or anyone else on the road because you need to get out of my way.
Oh, how I wish I had an Opticom. Most of this nonsense would go away.
There are four rules to driving an emergency vehicle (from a retired Arizona fire chief):
Do not hit anything
Do not get hit with anything
Do not roll over
Do not scare anyone inside or outside your fire engine
Follow these rules and you’ll never have a problem.
This really can’t be emphasized enough. If you’ve got nowhere to go, don’t go anywhere! I cringe every time I see someone do this.
I know this happens, but it’s neither right nor legal. If there’s no other way to get through the intersection I’ll shut everything down (except the Opticom and wait for the light to turn green. We can’t help anyone if we don’t get there safe and we’re certainly not doing anyone any favors by putting the general public in danger, either.
We stress in our driver training that you can’t force someone through a red light. It’s just too dangerous. If you see this happening, take Cartooniverse’s advice- get the unit number and name of the ambulance service, and call it in!
The vast, vast majority of EMTs and Paramedics are not using an ambulance that they own, personally. That said, whoever does own the ambulance will likely charge for mileage as part of the bill. The service I work at bills $12 per loaded mile (distance travelled with a patient in the back)
There’s a huge variation in how ambulance services are provided. According to the 2006 200-City Survey (PDF) in the Journal of Emergency Medical Services, the breakdown is roughly:
Fire Department based: 35%
Private Company 34%
Third Service 14%
Hospital-based 6%
It’s possible that an ambulance service is renting the house and using it as a station, so the people don’t live there, but the ambulance crews stay there while on shift.
I almost got hit by an ambulance a few months ago. I was first in line at a red light, the light changed to green and I proceeded through the intersection. Halfway through I heard a big honk and looked to my left, an ambulance had come around a corner and was coming through the intersection on his red light. He had his lights on but no siren. Scared the crap out of me. I felt like an idiot for not yielding to the ambulance, but I honestly did not see him. I don’t know why the siren wasn’t on, especially as he was coming through an intersection without the green light!
The OP is asking about emergency vehicle lights, which in the U.S. are red and blue. Tow trucks, snowplows, and security vehicles have yellow lights. And thus my answer implied, “You’re required to slow down and pull over for any red or blue lights”, since “red and blue lights” are what’s under discussion.
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