Is it illegal to overtake an Ambulance with it's blue's flashing!!!!!
 

Tonight whilst on my way home from work I heard two tone's and checked my mirror and saw an ambulance coming, so I moved over and let him pass, got to the next roundabout and he went round it twice with the blue's turned off, he then went onto a 60mph road doing between 55 and 60 mph and then turned his blues back on, when it was safe I over took him and I don't think he was too pleased about that, should I expect a vist from the old bill??
Cheers
Colin

a visit from the common sense clinic might be in order !!

I had a situation like this, 4 of us were out on the motorbikes haring along the A50 towards Stoke. We were cruising at about 90 and caught an Ambulance up, blue lights going. After watching a BMW attempt to overtake and the Ambulance pull into the centre of the dual carriageway we decided to sit behind it for a while.

Eventually we reached a big roundabout and the ambulance indicated left, we were going straight on so got in the right hand lane and tried to get past, only to find the ambulance weaving in front of us and the driver waving his fist. He did eventually go left and we went our seperate ways but we learnt our lesson: ambulance drivers are poorly trained as drivers but probably not bad at putting plasters on ;)

scoobydoooo care to explain yourself!!!!!!!!!

There could be situations where the ambulances overall speed would have to be reduced so as to cause as little reaction to the on board patient, so would say that as long as you were not racing or trying to keep up with this particularly emergency vehicle then as long as your overtaking maneouvre did not effect there progress then wouldnt see what is wrong with what you done.

No you would only get in trouble if there was a police escort and only after the coppers had finished their escort,if that makes sense

It is not illegal to overtake an ambulance, fire-engine, policecar on blues providing you stay within the speedlimit etc & are not warned off by a policeman.

I think you'll find that they spend quite a bit of their training in response/fast driver training and are likely to be reasonably competant. I know my m8, whom I thought was originally a cr@p driver, was turned into a good driver by it.

I followed an ambulance car through the traffic at the speeds I normally travel at - just with the advantage of all the cars ahead pulling over. The ambulace car screeched to a halt in the middle of a busy road, the man got out and told me I was on camera.

I really shat myself there :rolleyes: think about it. What do cars have on the front of them that bikes dont?

Silly ****... I stopped for red lights, gave way on roundabouts etc. Must be on a power trip/have a chip that he isnt a copper.

Damo

His control was prob. giving him directions. The person on the other end of the phone may have been in a state andd was unable to give the correct address / position of the incident.
He was prob buying a bit of thinking time while going round the roundabout.
Just a thought

Whether its legal or not, he has got enough on his mind not to have to put up with the complication of someone overtaking him when he is trying to get an emergency case to the hospital.

Can't believe you were selfish enough to want to overtake him anyway!

Les :(

i overtake on dual carriageway if they are doing 60 or under. Never really batted an eye-lid, makes no difference to them...

Nope, he indicated left in the left hand lane and then deliberately drove at us as we tried to go straight on in the right hand lane while shaking his fist at us. We hadn't attempted an earlier overtake and kept our distance up to the roundabout. Left us all pretty stunned. I hope he would have scooped us up and took us to the hospital if he had knocked us off.

It was the big Uttoxeter roundabout on the A50 if anyone knows it, loads of room and no need for him to get all arsey, even if he'd been going straight on. He was obviously just pissed off because loads of cars had overtaken him and he decided not to let anyone else pass (hence over 6 miles of straddling the white line on the dual carriageway, he nearly forced the BM off the road that tried to pass).

No its not illegal.

I preffer to follow them, its more exciting, " All About A Boy " stylee...

Just need the TT now.:)

Leslie,
Please don't get me wrong but it was a clear road to overtake on, under no circumstances did I put myself the ambulance or any other road user in danger, I don't do that, it just seem really strange to have you blue's and two's going one minute and then turn them off the next, then turn the blue's back on.

No it's not illegal. Highway Code rules 29, 194 & 255 just talk about getting out of the way.

Obviously it is illegal to weave around to stop another vehicle from overtaking.

Thanks Nick:D

Rev,
was refering to Colin's incident. TBH I didnt read yours :D

PG

Píssing your own pants isn't illegal but it's not clever either. :rolleyes:

Without actually knowing the exact details it's hard to be a judge but from what has been posted just leaves me with a feeling of disbelief.

Wtf has happened to this country that people can't/won't give the emergency services room/time to go about their service?

As already mentioned, the ambulance trying to find somewhere could well be a hazard itself, changing lanes, slowing down, speeding up etc because the driver is taking instructions from somebody else.

The last thing they want is being crowded, challenged or restricted in any way to allow them to potentially save lives.

They may well indicate left 50 yards before a junction but until they disappear left along that road, hang back in case it becomes a right 15 yards before the junction.

Obviously if it's travelling at 15mph with say a spinal injured patient aboard then you are going to want to overtake, but even then common sense should tell you to give it every exit option at a roundabout without trying to squeeze past if it's displaying it's blues.

Most of the old Ambulances aren't actually that fast and sadly on fast roads most cars end up overtaking (especially on dual carriageways and motorways). You need to be aware when overtaking a vehicle with it's blue lights on that it IS DEFINATELY on an emergency call so extra caution needs to be taken by yourself!

Any driver of an emergency vehicle that shouts or shakes their fist is highly unprofessional but other drivers can be very frustrating as most don't have a clue what to do when there is a vehicle with blue lights flashing behind them!

I've just done my advanced driving for the Ambulance Service and I'd just like to say that when people finish the driving course, the standards are top quality. If people let their standards slip then it's nothing to do with not being trained properly in the first place!

Fair enough Scoob99, but I still would not want to overtake one personally if he has the blues on, except possibly on a two lane road if there is plenty of room and he is appreciably slower than me.

Les

Hmm, you overtake and then happen upon the scene of the accident they are attending, basically just keep out of the way, you get it wrong and end up causing an accident with an Ambulance, now that wouldnt go down well with the Magistrates or the poor sod(s) waiting for medical assistance. Also it doesnt do the Scoobs (already tarnished) image any good either if other motorist see that kind of trick.

Nice to see the Internet Police are out in force today :rolleyes:

What so the ambulance is doing the speed limit with its lights on and jack the lad overtakes him somehow without breaking the law? How does that work then?

show a bit of respect to the guys doing a tough job.
selfish and stupid act.

What a stupid thing to do. It is very dangerous to follow an emergency vehicle through traffic. The people who have pulled over are not expecting some idiot to be tailgating the emergency vehicle and will often pull out without warning once it has passed. This type of driving causes numerous accidents.

Even driving as a second emergency vehicle behind another is dangerous as people dont expect two to be coming along.

Agreed, but wtf was the guy doing getting out and giving the bloke following grief?

He was either on his way to an emergency - in which case he shouldn't have stopped, or he wasn't, in which case he had no right to be driving "through" the traffic, presumably with the blues and twos on.

Pair of idiots if you ask me.

As for overtaking an ambulance/fire engine, that depends on what kind of road and what speed they are doing. If its safe to do so, whats the problem?

I drive my impreza as a response car.
Funnily enough never had any problems with people overtaking me while I'm running on blues.


Not particularly clever to follow ambulance through traffic though, people who have moved over will generally pull back out as soon as ambulance is past them, often without checking.
I've followed traffic police to incidents in the past, and the presence of a 2nd emergency vehicle often catches people out, so they pull back out as soon as 1st is past.

Good idea to stay well clear at complicated junctions / roundabouts etc, some services use GPS/Satnav, but some still rely on the 2nd crew member reading the A-Z, Unsurprisingly this can lead to the occasional extra lap of a roundabout.

Having been in the back of an Ambulance after my heart attack I can say I only have total respect for the Ambulance crews.
Not only did they have to go through the stressfull situation of getting me diagnosed and stabalised they then had to drive me to hospital with sirens blarring through town centre traffic.

Just bare in mind that if you overtake an ambulance you may then hold him up at the next junction/lights/roundabout.

If they have a patient in the back they may not drive that fast as the second paramedic may be stood up giving life saving treatment. The last thing they need is a string of cars overtaking them.

Lee

Do you drive the Silver one with the morrettes?

Yes

Think I saw you at an RTA in Knowle last week. VW vs Barn ;)