ADUK Archive

A situation I nearly faced for the first time recently:

I was driving on a country road on a winter's evening and so could easily see sirens were flashing from a fairly long distance behind. The road was quite bendy with a 50MPH limit (but could easily safely do 60MPH) and hence solid white lines virtually all the time.

When I first saw the lights, I was on a bendy/solid white lines bit of road.
Of course I know emergency services are allowed to cross solid white lines, but I wasn't sure whether it was sensible to expect them to overtake me on blind bends.

So I was worried about the risk of being in the situation of having them right behind me and me slowing down when maybe they don't want me to because they don't want to overtake on such a bend.

In such a situation, would you
a) Carry on at the 50MPH speed limit and hope to reach a straight bit of road to slow down/stop on before they catch up with you and want to overtake.
b) Safely go above the limit to 60MPH to increase the chance of getting to a straight bit of road that they can easily overtake on
c) Not worry at all and just stop as far to the left as you can when they get close to you, and expect them to take the risk of overtaking on a blind bend?

In the end I kind of chose B, except I only went upto 55 MPH hoping that was within tolerance of the limit and hoping that I'd come to a straight bit of road, and luckily I did get to a straight bit before they got close and so I waited there.

Thanks

Find the straightest possible stretch of the road, no one will expect you to exceed the speed limit. Let them know you are aware of their presence by giving a signal if they are behind you, and pull in as far to the left without damaging your vehicle or anything else. Be mindful there may be more than one behind you so look out and listen for a second, they may have different tones on to alert you.

My advice is that you don't exceed limits, any other part of the HC/RTA or change your driving style. If no suitable place to pull over is available from the time you first become aware of them, drive safely until you can pull over or stay as close to the left as is safely possible until they can pass you. It is quite rightly their role to pass you safely, not yours to avoid them but we all try to accommodate our emergency services whenever possible, so act reasonably.

Overtaking on a blind bend requires levels of skill and observation which many of us aren't trained for. I hope they made it safely to whoever they wanted to help.

What they've all said. We asked the Police this recently during a meeting and their advice was exactly as per daz's - give them a signal - they suggested a flash of brake lights, then find the first sensible place to pull over.

One of them also said it was unlikely the ambulance would be able to go much faster than you, anyway ...

Is the OP referring to an ambulance? I would be surprised if one caught him up if he was driving around the NSL unless it is one of those ambulcars.

Whatever it was I would wait for a straight bit of road unless I could pull over sufficiently, eg in an entrance.

Although when a Police car caught me up and sat on my tail in a 40mph limit with double white lines the driver did appear to flash his headlights at me as I waited to get around the corner before pulling over.

Emergency services are not exempt from crossing white lines although they are not likely to be prosecuted for doing so.

As above, emergency services don't have an exemption for crossing solid white lines beyond that which we all do (traffic stationary/ moving less than 5 miles per hour)
Technically the right answer is maintain your current driving within the law, the onus is on the ambulance to safely pass you, in reality I'd give a quick flash of my hazards so they know I'm aware of them and looking to get out of their way and look to make a bit more progress until there was somewhere to duck out of their way.

With regard to the solid whites, if it is justifiable and proportionate a police officer may choose to cross!

There is no emergency service exemption to solid white lines (not like speed restrictions, red lights etc).

What should happen if they want you to continue is they will hang back and turn the siren off until such time as a piece of road that an overtake can be safely executed appears. Then they should put the siren back on and move to an overtaking position.

That won't always happen as not all the ESV drivers appear to be trained to the same standard and some private ambulance companies filling gaps for the NHS have little or no training past a DVLA licence for the class of vehicle.

Depending on cross views and the level of driver they might pass on the inside of a right hand bend at high speed which to many people looks dangerous (the kind of people who only look at the 30 metres of road directly in front of them) but is perfectly safe and quite easy with the proper cross view.

daz6215 wrote:With regard to the solid whites, if it is justifiable and proportionate a police officer may choose to cross!

I've replied to this in the 'Legal' forum so as not to inject unnecessary boredom into this thread.

Standard Dave wrote:There is no emergency service exemption to solid white lines (not like speed restrictions, red lights etc).

Yes the exemptions are as follows, speed, traffic signals which should be treated as a stop and give way and keep left and right signs.

But you may need to save life and therefore make that decision!
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4302

Fourth (and last) exemption for ES drivers is driving on hard shoulder.

I thought that emergency services only had exemptions to exceed a speed limit, go through a red light, and pas on the side of a traffic island with a keep left arrow, not cross a solid white line. I may be wrong, but IIRC, it was Vonhosen who said that in some circumstances if there is the relevent traffic order applicable to a one way street, they have an exemption to travel in the wrong direction.

The exemptions are the one's I stated above, anything else would need to be justified and proportionate.

What about "For the purposes of complying with any direction of a constable in uniform"?

Ralge wrote:Fourth (and last) exemption for ES drivers is driving on hard shoulder.

Yes, quite so!

3:40 - 3:45.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA_sIO8P6DM