You hear the stories all the time about drivers who don’t pull over for emergency vehicles. In some areas of the country it seems to be unusual for people to obey this law.
But the other morning, during busy rush hour traffic at a busy intersection, I heard the distant sound of an ambulance. Not a single car moved at all, except one mini-van who started up from the light, pulled through the intersection and then, realizing why no-one else was moving, pulled over and waited, even though the ambulance was a very long block away. The blue lights above the traffic lights hadn’t even started to flash. But everyone waited. And waited.
And I realized that only rarely do I ever see anyone around here NOT pull over and stop. I’m so proud! I’m sure emergency vehicle drivers could tell tales of near misses and flagrant flouting of the law, but at least the western suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, we know what to do and don’t mind doing it. It’s truly a mundane thing to be proud of, but it made my morning!
Our community, and several others around here have recently installed these small blue lights that are mounted above the traffic signals. They are activated by approaching emergency vehicles as a visual warning to drivers. But they don’t activate until the ambulance or fire truck is almost in the intersection, so I don’t know what use they are, especially when the sun is shining.
That’s one thing that impressed me about Youngstown - when there is an emergency vehicle coming, for the most part everyone pulls over. It’s something my parents really enforced when we were learning to drive, so I already did, but in most other places I’ve lived there seemed to be a serious “this speeding emergency vehicle with its lights flashing is going to slow me down” attitude in drivers.
Around here they have white lights mounted on the traffic signal mast arms to indicate that the signal has been overridden by an emergency vehicle. We also have blue lights, but these are used by police officers to help them spot red-light runners from the other side of the intersection. These are mounted on the opposite side of the signal heads.
Not quite accurate. Under this system, emergency vehicles are equipped with a kind of flasher and the traffic lights have a receptor installed on them. When the receptor on the traffic light detects an approaching flasher it changes the traffic light to give the emergency vehicle the right of way. The little blue light is to inform the driver of the emergency vehicle that the traffic light has been activated and will turn green for him.
