ADUK Archive

HEMS is as far as I know just the name for the London helicopter medics. Paramedics of course travel on blues in ambulances or FRVs, but BASICS is a national organisation representing 'immediate care schemes' which involve doctors (often GPs) giving up their free time to attend emergencies when called out by the ambulance service. Many BASICS schemes use green lights, but Hampshire among others drive under blues.

Thats interesting, do you know what sort of training they undertake?

Nope, no idea I'm afraid. I did trawl through their websites a few years ago to find out but didn't get very far. I had the impression that some of them had no formal training at all, but I'm not up to date on whether that would even be legal now.

James wrote:I weill try and answer the question but there will no doubt be many I have missed:

Police
Ambulance
Fire
Bomb Disposal
Coastguard ?
Some Parking Removal Trucks
Some Prison Transport Vehicles
Blood
Some Military Vehicles

Feel free to cut and paste the above and add to it...

HATOs

Thought they had orange lights?

Some Citroen Saxos

James wrote:Thought they had orange lights?

Orange and rear REDS.

Just trying to be contentious......

Rick wrote:Lots of factories/refineries have there own Emergency service vehicles and also drive on the road on B&2's which opens a big can of worms... if anyone with legal experience would like to input on that point plase feel free, as it was a big worry for me when i was in the driver training field.

I know that in ICI's case they had applied for and been given approval by each constabluary concerned; Kent, Cheshire etc. It was specifically mentioned at their hazardous goods training courses.

manilva15b wrote:

Rick wrote:Lots of factories/refineries have there own Emergency service vehicles and also drive on the road on B&2's which opens a big can of worms... if anyone with legal experience would like to input on that point plase feel free, as it was a big worry for me when i was in the driver training field.

I know that in ICI's case they had applied for and been given approval by each constabluary concerned; Kent, Cheshire etc. It was specifically mentioned at their hazardous goods training courses.

Constabularies can't give approval, it's down to the regs.

vonhosen wrote:Constabularies can't give approval, it's down to the regs.

Was this always the case, or were my former employers misinformed? The examples I quoted date back to the late 80's.

With the fire service you can sub-divide!

1) Front line appliances
2) Support units (control/catering/workshops etc.) (interesting the catering comes in on blues but emergency toilets don't!!!)
3) Officers (this divides into a massive list!)
4) USAR technicians
5) The odd naughty RDS firefighter
6) Rural Safety (animal rescue)
7) Arson investigation

a) Lifeboat crews, some marked vehicles have blues.
b) National disastor contingency personnel (probably a posher name)- some have
blues fitted to their vehicles.
c) Co-responder vehicles (in Hampshire renault Clios are used, with a firefighter
(s) as the driver/responder

Mines Rescue (we had a notice advising of the vehicles they would be using for training recently).

Some doctors and other Health care professionals use blue lights and claim exemptions under the ambulance exemptions.

Others I can think of that i've seen are:-

Organ retrival teams (for transplant).
Transplant Patient transport cars and ambulances (Techincally ambulance exemption but different to front line NHS emergency ambulances).
RAF first responders (working for LIVES and East Midlands ambulance service in Lincolnshire [I guess they claim ambulance exemption])
Vehicle examiners (Police exemption although many are civilian staff).

Dartford River Crossing Patrol vehicles

tunneldave wrote:Dartford River Crossing Patrol vehicles

I'd forgotten them! I'd heard they could only have blue lights because the crossing was considered a private road? Though I wouldn't have thought that would affect the regulations as it is (obviously) a road to which the public have access.

This is the list I had in mind:

Airwave
National Blood Service
Royal Logistics Corps Bomb Disposal
Coastguard
Cave Rescue
Mountain Rescue
Mines Rescue
RNLI
Naval Emergency Monitoring Organisation
Prison Service

As others have said Ambulance/Fire could be subdivided. Round here we have MAGPAS doctors on blues.

Found out yesterday, the London Air Ambulance Service use blue lights on response vehicles.