No it didn't. Nothing has right of way over an emergency vehicle with blue lights.
I do that for a short period if I'm stopping or a minute or two. I can't be bothered turning the dip off (and would probably forget to put it back on). But then I'm one of about 5% of people with a dipped beam that doesn't dazzle people. FFS use the bloody adjustment next to your steering wheel! It's easy enough, when you're driving behind someone, lower it until it's under the bottom of their rear window.
The existing M25 around Heathrow is already so bad, that I don't think anybody will notice the difference! And some idiot wants to put another runway into Heathrow. Must be a politician, no one else could be so stupid. I now allow 3.5 hours for the 40 mile journey to Heathrow. I used to allow 45 minutes from just outside Edinburgh to Prestwick when I used that airport.
Well, I think you will find they did, as the driver of any emergency vehicle will know if they are involved in a RTA themselves. The issue with all that is the van driver may have felt it was better to get off the main road to give the ambulance a route on the wrong side of the road and the ambulance driver has no authority to drive though any vehicle in it's path. 'There may well be an offence if a driver
*deliberately / meaningfully* impedes the progress of a an emergency vehicle but as probably 1 in 10 vehicles get in their way (from what I've experienced personally) because of the lack of attention or inability to deal with it in any case they would be fining people all over the place.
The Highway Code only says this:
"219. Emergency and Incident Support vehicles.
You should look and listen for ambulances, fire engines, police, doctors or other emergency vehicles using flashing blue, red or green lights and sirens or flashing headlights, or Highways Agency Traffic Officer and Incident Support vehicles using flashing amber lights. When one approaches do not panic. Consider the route of such a vehicle and take appropriate action to let it pass, while complying with all traffic signs. If necessary, pull to the side of the road and stop, but try to avoid stopping before the brow of a hill, a bend or narrow section of road. Do not endanger yourself, other road users or pedestrians and avoid mounting the kerb. Do not brake harshly on approach to a junction or roundabout, as a following vehicle may not have the same view as you."
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Nor do they have carte blanche to do what they like:
"While using blue lights, drivers are exempt from a number of motoring regulations, including
treating a red traffic light as a give way sign passing to the wrong side of a keep left bollard driving on a motorway hard shoulder (even against the direction of traffic) disobeying the speed limit (police, fire and ambulance services only)
However, they are not allowed to
ignore a ?no entry? sign ignore a ?stop? or ?give way? sign drive the wrong way down a one-way street ignore flashing signs at level crossings or fire stations cross a solid white line down the middle of the road*"
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I wonder how many drivers will be dazzled in that time?
I'm not sure you should be driving in that case.
Have you tried looking at your own car from the front left then?
I would imagine that of the vehicles that have such things (2 of ours do) few know that they exist and therefore how / when to use them.
Or just don't drive so close. ;-)
I think that would be an offence.
"Using a horn aggressively.
Improper use of the horn is contrary to regulation 99 (1) of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986, section 42 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 and Schedule 2 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act
No, I didn't think you had looked at the front of your own car as seen from the POV on an oncoming vehicle as if you had you would understand the difference between the beam you see it from inside the car versus the glare seen from the outside.
Correct, so in the case of them being slow exiting a T junction, what are you warning them of?
Nope. Any use of the horn *after* an event is an improper / aggressive use and you could be fined for such. Warning someone you are close or could be close is the correct use. Using it *after* any event is just aggression / frustration (as the guy who sounded his horn several times after stopping quickly to avoid knocking over an inattentive pedestrian found out when fined). [1]
I don't care that you don't understand the differences, just educating you about them.
Do you think that using your horn aggressively at any bad driver is going to make them drive better?
And you to more bs.
Cheers, T i m
[1] There are a couple of local junctions where the 'main road' isn't actually the main road any more and so many people assume no one is going to be going into or coming out of what is now a dead-end. So, those people who are actually going into said dead end often *briefly* sound their horn if they see a car entering the junction from the side road to get their attention and hopefully prevent them pulling out in front of them (even though they aren't signaling left etc). So the use of the horn as a *warning* is correct. As punishment / chastisement / 'education' it is not.
I must admit, I have thought that the easiest way - if not the most aesthetically pleasing - to expand road capacity is to simply stack a top road on (cf. elevated M4, Aston Expressway). Or (maybe better) stack a TRAIN system on top (cf New Yorks elevated subway tracks).
Part of the problem is the dissonance between what people do (which is move into cities) and what politicians are elected to do (which, fundamentally, is to stop city growth).
Cities are hardly new things, and neither is the desire to live in them. The Greeks decided 3,000 years ago that city living was the epitome of civilisation. The Romans confirmed that, and subsequent history has done nothing to counter that assertion. If it wasn't for hippies like Wordsworth, Keats and the aggressive German fresh air brigade are an anomaly borne of the luxury that cities provide of being able to waste your time writing poetry rather than *having* to till the land.
cf the A4123 Birmingham-Wolverhampton or the A4 Hounslow-Chiswick.
In the 1980s, I could leave Hounslow at 6pm and be parking outside Imperial College Kensington at 6:20.
The fact that de-tuning the lights unquestionably increase pollution is another arrow in my quiver of "climate change bollocks" points. Which - for the hard of thinking - doesn't mean I don't believe in climate change. I do. But I believe that so far all attempts politicians try and sell to us as solutions are a load of bollocks.
And that in turn is often a function of how 'aware' you are of your surroundings. I don't generally play music loud in my car (tinnitus) and have reasonably good vision and like to think I 'keep my wits about me', so often see / hear emergency way before they are close and it seems, much sooner than many other drivers.
Many times I've spotted a good place to slow / pull over and in plenty of time for said emergency vehicle to pass only to have cars overtake me and then actually create an effective road block! ;-(
Maybe having good observation skills is part of being a 'bloke' as I'm also generally scanning the area ahead for hazards (Hazard perception) that may also happen to include nice looking ladies (and motorcycles etc). ;-)
Then the policeman was in the wrong. If you were not speeding as he approached, why was he flashing his blue lights? The blue lights are to pull you over, but it seems he flashed them BEFORE you were speeding. I would have disputed it.
It's VERY obvious. I've always spotted the blue lights about 10 seconds or more before they reach me, and simply slowed down, mounted a pavement or verge, and let them past. I don't see what the problem is you're having.
You've missed the point and you've missed the point of roads.
There are journeys made now that wouldn't have been made if the roads weren't there. I certainly think nothing of going to see someone 100 miles away that when I started driving would have been a two day trip to make it worthwhile.
The whole idea of roads is to carry traffic and just about every time a new route is opened or improved then new traffic will find its way there.
The A42/M42 when first opened was quiet. I could traverse its length M1 to M5 in around 40-45 mins on runs down to Exeter early in the morning, a business run that 50 years ago couldn't be reasonably done in a day.
The reason that we still keep getting traffic flow issues is not the building of the roads, its that we're simply not keeping up with the demand that is there, so by the time a road is built, or expanded, the pressure has reformed.
I thimk te4 evidence of te last ive age mnakes id very hard to not believe in climate change. That of course is the beauty of the alarmists dialectic.
They first of all estand switch to tell you that today's climate change is 'unprecedented' which is a distortion of the truth that since the Hadley centre didn't coexist with hairy mammoths, we haven't got a 30 year period with decent measurements stretching back beyond 100 years. So althought there is niothig like 1978-1998 in te records, thats because te records themselves dcant show any 29 year period in fine detail more than 190 years old.
Then th y say that 'there is no better explanatiuon than human activity. Which is true because largely there is no explanation whatsoever for any climate change. And in fact chaos mathematics shows that there doesn't need to be any external cause at all. Even the ice ages are hotly debated as to cause, and although there is an orthodoxy, its by no means sure that its the truth
One might with equal justification hypothesises that the pixies make the sun rise every morning.
I started driving in 1965. Then there was nothing particularly special about a 100 mile trip. More tedious than today, sure.
Ah, so you've worked your way around to admitting that it's not the building of the roads, but the increase in traffic generally, that is the problem. Not helped by the 15 million increase in population since I started driving.
The "numpty" is doing the right thing. If you stop (provided you don't do it just where there's a refuge and keep-left thingy in the middle of the road) then the emergency driver doesn't have to compute in his head where you are going to be when he passes you. He can get on with the driving bit.
The real numpties are the ones who think the best thing to do is speed up.
It depends on the circumstances. I might stop, slow down, or speed up. It's pretty easy to work out how not to be where the ambulance wants to be.
For example, I'm travelling along a road at the speed limit of 60mph behind two other cars. An ambulance approaches from behind at 80mph. The two cars in front pull over and slow down or stop. I accelerate to 90mph, leaving the ambulance behind me so I'm not in it's way, and I get past the slowcoaches in front of me.
Following an ambulance is also a good way of getting past the law abiding buggers who won't go faster than the signs. They pull over to let the ambulance pass then I get past aswell before they notice.
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