Advanced Driving Hub

I'd do what I knew to be safe to get out of the way of the emergency vehicle. It's as simple as that.

I didn't hold up the ambulance. Nothing I did delayed its arrival.

David

Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:Interesting. This sounds like you were, effectively, racing the ambulance? You chose to overtake it in the NSL sections, but then held it up in the lower speed limits?

wouldn't that be the same impression if you meet one of those upright members of the community who does 40mph everywhere... you would no doubt overtake them in a 60 and the. hold them up in the next village with a 30mph limit - which one would be driving badly?

Alasdair

akirk wrote:

Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:Interesting. This sounds like you were, effectively, racing the ambulance? You chose to overtake it in the NSL sections, but then held it up in the lower speed limits?

wouldn't that be the same impression if you meet one of those upright members of the community who does 40mph everywhere... you would no doubt overtake them in a 60 and the. hold them up in the next village with a 30mph limit - which one would be driving badly?

Alasdair

You obviously know the answer - the 30 is there to protect the public. You are doing everyone a favour by forcing the 40 everywheres to moderate their speed. I sometimes hope that if I am positive enough about acceleration into the NSL's and about reducing speed into the 30's, then one or two of them might just 'get it' and improve their own driving.
As for the emergency vehicles, the drivers are trained, alert and the vehicles themselves have audible and visible warnings. They CAN safely exceed the 30 limit and we must let them go. I suppose there might be a situation where you could then overtake them in an NSL (legally?), but it doesn't seem very sensible to me.

kfae8959 wrote:I've had some correspondence with the North West Ambulance Service about this, particularly following a journey a while ago on a stretch of road where I was baulking the following ambulance when there were speed restrictions, but the ambulance was very definitely baulking me when there weren't. In the end I decided that I was going faster than the ambulance overall, so I stopped trying to let it past.

A subsequent conversation with someone who has trained ambulance drivers encouraged me to try to get a drive in one of their vehicles. Apparently they're complete buggers, and I'd be a lot more sympathetic if I'd had a go in one. I'll let you know!

David

Having had the misfortune to need an ambulance on Saturday afternoon I can imagine that they are complete buggers. The ride in the back is not very comfortable when you're in pain. You feel every bump and they tend to wallow.

Nigel.