Just because an emergency response vehicle is traveling with with lights and sirens does not mean other road users won’t cause an accident. We had an ambulance end up in an accident while they were running hot carrying a patient to the hospital. Another vehicle ran a stop sign and the ambulance swerved to try to avoid a collision. Unfortunately the ambulance did hit the other vehicle but more damage was done as they hit a building when they swerved.
And, as luck would have it, it was a nearly new ambulance. Sigh.
It’s like that here as well. I calm myself by picturing karma catching up to them. They get into an accident and are bleeding to death in the gutter. The last thing they hear as they slide into oblivion is a siren in the distance that won’t make it there in time because people won’t get out of the way.
Many of the major intersections in the greater metropolitan Chicago area have sensors on the traffic signals that can be triggered by approaching emergency vehicles so that, by the time they reach the intersections, the traffic lights are green for them and red for cross traffic. This definitely has helped reduce accidents.
Based on several posts above, it seems ambulances cover more non-emergency miles than I suspected; ignorance fought, thanks. This might explain why a smaller percentage of their crashes happen in emergency mode than for fire trucks: emergency mode may be comparably dangerous for both types of vehicle, but ambulances perhaps have a higher percentage of non-emergency miles than fire trucks.
We were taught if there are multiple emergency vehicles with sirens on that they should be using different tones. That the public is used to pulling over/stopping for A (single) emergency vehicle & then going back about their driving. With different siren tones they’ll realize that there is more than one emergency vehicle. Further, if the two vehicles in these crashes each had the same tone & they were synced up, it would be impossible to hear the other one (assuming it was at an intersection). Still, at least one of them should have stopped, or at least slowed & made sure it was clear before proceeding. That operator is at fault & quite possible received a ticket for it (PD doesn’t always have as much leeway, especially in an accident, especially if there are injuries & municipal apparatus is damaged.)
Sharkwife’s beat was Spanish Harlem in NYC (retired now) and FDNY issued bulletproof vests to EMS. I made her wear one on NYE and 4th of July, but it was too hot and bulky to wear all of the time.