I was traveling northbound on I-35E last night when a marked state police car passed me on the right. I would conservatively estimate he was traveling at 120 mph. The shock wave pushed me around in my little Prius C and scarred the living hell out of me. The police car was traveling without any emergency lights or sirens and I expect that if I had started a lane change at that time the consequences could have been devastating.
So I’m wondering what laws exist in Minnesota that govern the speed and behavior of emergency vehicles. I’ve found references to how civilians need to respond to “appropriately identified” emergency vehicles (sirens, lights), but I’m not finding anything that governs how emergency vehicles are operated.
Any assistance would be appreciated! Thanks in advance.
I find it unlikely that you could accurately estimate the speed of a car passing you as being 120 MPH. You said that this happened on I-35E in Minnesota. The speed limit there is 45 MPH, it appears:
The car would thus be traveling at least 75 MPH faster than you. Why do you think you can estimate velocities that well? Have you ever tested your ability to estimate them that well?
Since you know the road better than the Wikiipedia people do, please tell us what the speed limit is on each section of the I-35E. Incidentally, my apologies for messing up the link. Here’s the correct link:
The Wikipedia article is confusing. The 45 MPH restriction only occurs in the “parkway” section of I35E. The speed limit varies depending how near/far you are to city center. I’ve driven the length of I35E many times, the time being this summer.
The OP said “conservatively estimate”. That means that the car was probably going at least that fast and there is no reason to automatically reject that claim. It isn’t that difficult to estimate how fast other cars are going if they pass you while you are going fairly fast yourself. My commute every day is mostly down a stretch of interstate known for its high speed driving. You aren’t going to get stopped for going anything less than 80mph and I occasionally do 90mph+ when I am in a hurry. It isn’t a big deal because other cars in the fast lane are going that fast too or they will move over when they see you overtaking them.
It isn’t a matter watching a car zoom past you while you are standing still beside the road. It is noticing that someone is overtaking you unusually quickly at a rate of 30 - 50mph relative to your own speed and that is very easy to do.
Cars and motorcycles do it to me too fairly frequently and I have done it to other people on open stretches of road especially when I had my BMW (I really was going over 120mph and I am sure that was obvious to everyone I passed). There is no reason to dismiss the claim at all. When you are going 70mph+, it is blatantly obvious when someone passes you so quickly that it is like you are standing still.
I don’t carry a radar gun in my car but you don’t need to. Do you think you can tell the difference between a car going 10mph versus one going 50mph? It would be really odd if you couldn’t and give a reasonably accurate range of speed. If you are going 80mph yourself, that is all you need to do for this question because you are just judging relative speed over a fairly long time interval with lots of reference points.
But have you ever tested your ability to estimate speeds of exactly 10mph and exactly 50mph? To hell with the actual question, someone is being imprecise on the Internet!
I have been in an ambulance in the state of Minnesota traveling at 120 miles per hour, with no emergency, no siren, and as far as I know, no lights. The driver knew he was breaking the law, but he also knew that no police car was going to stop a speeding ambulance.