I'm sorry, I didn't realize your time is more important that someone's life.

The BBQ Pit
1

I realize now that you must have had a very important, high-powered business meeting to get to, what with your 1992 Corolla and all, so I apologize for wanting you to pull over for our ambulance and its flashing lights, like the law says you should. I know, I know, it’s our fault for not knowing that the second cousin to the Emperor of the World was on that very road, and as such has immunity from our paltry traffic laws, meant only for the commoners. We should have gone the long way around, giving you the whole road to yourself, but sometimes us lowly folk not decendant of royalty make mistakes. Please forgive us, your highness. I’m sure the guy going into cardiac arrest will thank you…if he doesn’t die, that is.

I also apologize for using our siren. You’re right, it’s too loud. You can’t hear you XM radio with us blasting that annoying noise, designed to catch people’s attention from hundreds of yards away, in the background. Next time we’ll make sure you aren’t anywhere within a couple miles before turning it on…we wouldn’t want to hurt your infalliable eardrums.

Clearly you must know that wherever you’re going, you can’t possibly afford to lose five seconds of your time, especially not if someone else’s life is in danger. I suppose the person on the other end of that cell phone you’re jabbering away into must also be pretty damn important too, so please, make sure to tell him not to ever pull over either, because we don’t want you or any of your friends to do anything that might cause the slightest bit of trouble for you. Especially not if it’s something that can help your fellow man.

It’s a good thing the roads are filled with people like you, who, in an instant, are easily able to tell that they are the most important person on the road, and everyone else has to accomodate them. Sure makes my job easier, I don’t have to decide to pull around you into the middle of the road, exposing half of my ambulance to oncoming traffic…because you already made that choice for me! Likewise, you’re buddy at the intersection helped us out too by pulling out in front of us, because by God, he had a green light. Good thing we saw him, it made us realize that, even though we had the lights going, siren blaring, and air horn blasting, of course we still had to wait at the red light for a couple minutes while Mr. Johnson’s heart died a little more with each passing second.

Hey, here’s an idea: we’ll go out and buy you you’re very own emergency band radio. Anytime you hear an EMS or fire call and think you might be annoyed by it, just get on the horn and tell us not to bother. It sure would save everyone a whole heap o’ trouble, now wouldn’t it?

2

What you need is a dashcam like the cops have, and then turn the tapes over to the police after crap like this happens and they can send out summonses. Wouldn’t that be great? Imaging the look on “the second cousin to the Emperor of the World”'s face when he gets that in the mail!

3

What you need is a dashcam like the cops have, and then turn the tapes over to the police after crap like this happens and they can send out summonses. Wouldn’t that be great? Imaging the look on “the second cousin to the Emperor of the World”'s face when he gets that in the mail!

4

Or just a 1920’s Style “death ray.”

(Thank og they don’t actually exist, since one would certainly be discharged in my direction for that.)

5

Nice Rant, good style and I agree with it all.
I’m an aggressive driver, some would call me an asshole. But I always get out of the way of Emergency vehicles at least. Just don’t get the people who won’t.

6

Oh yes. For those of you who think it’s OK not to stop: Just imagine the day YOU or someone you love might be in that ambulance, with some bozo not moving. :frowning:

Oh, this is the Pit. I guess I could have called him something stronger but I don’t wanna.

7

There was this one time where I was at a hugely clogged intersection in the left-turn lane, and I heard a siren coming up from behind me just as my light turned green. I jackrabbited out into the intersection so that the lane behind me would be clear (there was nowhere to pull over until I got on the far side of the intersection)–and that’s when I realized that the siren was coming from the left, and that I’d made the ambulance slam on its brakes to avoid a collision with me. God, I felt awful.

So, on behalf of at least some of the crappy drivers out there, I apologize.

Daniel

8

Just to clarify, they don’t actually want you to stop, they want you to get out of the way. There is a whole different category of idiot whose brain freezes when he sees the flashy lights and just stops in the middle of the damn road. Nice instant roadblock.

9

Moo.

10

In some jurisdictions, I would think that writing down the license plate, a description, time and place, etc. would be enough grounds for a report to be filed. YMMV, but as far as school bus stop signs/red lights being violated, we have a report form that the driver fills out and we forward to the police. The police almost without fail prosecute. When there’s a court date, the driver shows and testifies.

If not yielding to an emergency vehicle is an offense just like running a stopped school bus, this might be some help.

Oh, PS: great rant.

11

It’s because of asshats like the guy in the corolla that someone needs to invent a weapon that either cuts the power to individual cars or allows the possessor of the weapon to control any car remotely. Of course, I’d be the only one to have said weapon. While Mr. Asshat is stuck without power and motion or conversly careening down run-off ditches out of control you can traverse around him and flip him the bird. Of course, a better use for this particular weapon would be to shut off the head-pounding deafening retard-sound that emits from cars where gangstas (is there a rolleyes smiley?) feel the need to not only make themselves deaf but royally piss me off and make me deaf as well.

And this weapon shall be named ‘Fuck You Asstard!’ Patent pending. :wink:

12

I need one of those, too.

BTW, the rolleyes smiley is :rolleyes:

13

Nice rant! I’ve pretty much just given up on anyone actually yielding to the ambulance anymore. It almost surprises me sometimes. I do have to share a story, too. Over the summer, we ran on a kid who had an open, angulated tib-fib fx from a trampoline accident. He had no distal pulses and we were running him hot to a trauma center. We took his dad along with us in the front seat. I stuck my head up front to get the cell phone to call in, just as my partner was negotiating a major intersection. The dad just looked at me and said, “Wow, nobody gets out of your way at all, do they?” I said, “Nope. Tell your friends.”

Also, I don’t know what state you’re in, but in Minnesota, you have four hours from the end of a call to report someone to law enforcement for failure to yield.

Bolding mine. Disclaimer- I never tried this while I was working in MN.

St. Urho
Paramedic

14

Well, St. Urho, don’t leave us hanging. Did you ever learn if they saved the kid’s arm?

15

Sorry. We followed up. He was in surgery before I was done writing my report. He had, I believe, a couple rods placed in his leg. So yes, they saved it.

16

Leg.

17

Umm… silly question, but was it safe for him to pull over?

18

He should have pulled as far to the right as was practicable, and stopped. Under what circumstances do you imagine that someone should not do that?

19

What if a nearby volcanic eruption is causing hot lava to pour onto the right side of the road? What about that, smart guy? Huh? Huh?

20

:slight_smile:

Well, yeah, OK, maybe then.