like e m e r g e n c y
There is no safest speed to blow through a red. Even emergency vehicles with their lights and siren on have to slow down and even stop to determine when it’s safest to drive through.
Which is to say, the safest speed is the one that is slow enough to allow you to see whether other drivers have seen you, and will give way to you, before you proceed.
But even that can be unsafe. You’d be amazed at how oblivious some drivers are, even to a fire truck with lights and siren blaring. Plus there are folks who genuinely don’t know what to do in the situation. The driver training and driver habits in this country are pathetic
I witnessed a car hit an ambulance. The ambulance had its lights and siren and was turning onto the road in front of me. I stopped and the car slightly beside me kept going and plowed into the side of the ambulance. The ambulance had slowed down as it approached the intersection but continued through.
I feel sorry for the poor patient.
Just watch those dashcam videos on YouTube and count how many times you say WTF?!?
My wife has driven on a two lane road for over a mile with a fire truck with lights and sirens behind her for a couple of miles without noticing. All she got was a warning. She was of course listening to some Buddhist monk pontificating. Of course she was probably going about as fast as the fire truck would go even with lights and sirens! 45 in a 25/35 winding country road.
She has also been followed by a police cruiser with blues and twos for a couple of long suburban blocks before she noticed and pulled over, expecting expecting them to pass her and “go to wherever they were in a hurry to get to”. They politely told her that one of her tail lights were not working. No failure to stop, no fleeing and sliding, no speeding (she is NEVER not speeding).
That happens all the time. Especially on the freeway. I hate when people wave to acknowledge they see you but then don’t slide into the right lane so I can go by. Or don’t pull over for 5 miles when I’m actually trying to pull them over.
“I didn’t know what to do”.
Here’s the address to the nearest DMV. Go surrender your license and ride the bus. Bus drivers usually know what to do.
How is a car slightly beside me, you ask.
I mean slightly behind me in the next lane. I wonder if the ambulance driver saw me stop and then figured it was safe.
Welcome to the board.
And as stated by others, it is unsafe to go through a red light at any speed, emergency or not.
Believe it or not it’s permissible in my state under a certain circumstance.
If you are on a motorcycle and the light has been red for at least 45 seconds and there are not other vehicles in the vicinity that would trip the light change then it is legal to use the light like a stop sign and go through it.
Wisconsin State Statute 346.37(4)
There are very few medical emergenies where the10-20 seconds it takes to safely clear an intersection is going make any difference for an injured person being driven to a hospital. The most important thing is to do no harm to the patient, and not create more victims.
Unless you have another type of e m e r g e n c y in mind.
There is none as other posters have said. Even emergency vehicles with sirens and lights on don’t just barrel through red lights. They stop to make sure everyone has seen them and has stopped, then will slowly edge out.
In ridiculous a Hollywood type “e m e r g e n c y” (“we have to get this atomic bomb out of the city before it explodes!”). I’d say either stopping (or slowing to a crawl) or going as fast as you can are probably the “safest” options. You are more likely to hit someone going 20 than 80.
Not to denigrate your wife, but we are taught in driver training here to check the rear mirror and both side mirrors every 3 seconds or so. Blind spot check on every turn or lane change. I would have failed my driver’s license if I had not.
My motorbike license was similar, except I had to move my head to prove I was looking because my helmet prevented the examiner from seeing my eyes.
Is this not standard driving practice?
The USA now has neither driver school nor meaningful driving tests. And certainly nothing to reinforce good habits over the course of a driving career.
ISTM many people master only looking out the front most of the time when not fiddling with their phone, accelerating until it’s time to brake, and usually remaining within their lane lines. And that is the sum total of what they habitually do.
Driving isn’t something you consciously do. It’s something your subconscious does while you’re thinking about other things.
My wife was unable to parallel park, hit a kerb when attempting a three point turn and rolled past a stop sign during her original drivers license test in Georgia. She still passed. She was horrified that the New York test I took was as so rigorous. This is 40 years ago.
There is a very different cultural perspective to driving in the USA than in many other countries. In the US, you often literally have to kill someone to lose your ability to drive. Driving is considered an essential life function.
I’ve done this several times in California. I’m not sure what the vehicle code statute would be, if there even is one, but some lights do not trip at all for motorcycles.
Welcome to the world of motorcyclists. We see this all the time.
Not the case at all. It is safe if done correctly. Added — and LEOs, fire truck drivers, and ambulance drivers do it regularly, mostly without incident.
Mostly? Even emergency vehicles can and do get slammed going through red lights. I guess we have different definitions of safe. There is always a risk, even with a green light.
And some things you’re just supposed to figure out on your own or hope someone tells you in advance. Like, say, always leaving a note if you accidentally back into someone else’s front bumper while parallel parking, even though there’s no visible damage to either car and you were going a fraction of 1mph at the time.