Here's what happened.
In a narrow one-way street I approached lights at a town-centre T junction in lane 1 to turn left, alongside a car in lane 2 waiting to turn right - all very proper. Then a police car with blue lights on appeared at the end of the street and came up behind. My understanding is that in that situation I should behave normally and leave it to the police driver to handle it - he’s the one with the exemptions! I didn’t like sitting in his way but that was the expected procedure as I understood it. Also, after the time I'd been there, plus the time he’d taken to reach me I was confident the lights would change at any moment anyway. So I concentrated on forward and lateral observation so I could clear the junction asap when the lights changed. Then from behind came not only the sound of a siren but two very firm horn notes, clearly saying, ‘Get out of my way’! I checked carefully and pulled cautiously across the stop line, into the cycles and pedestrian crossing area, until there was enough space for him to go through.
I knew from my own study of Roadcraft that sirens are supposed to be switched off in situations where the traffic in front is not able to respond, to avoid panicking drivers, so I had been caught on the hop by the mere fact that he used it at all - but the use of the standard horn as well really upped the anti and it put me off balance. Obviously I don’t have exemptions and if I’d panicked and not noticed something, resulting in an accident, I don’t expect for one cotton-picking moment that he would have taken responsibility! It was several minutes before I cleared my mind of all the racing thoughts.
Obviously, I’d hate it if he arrived too late and some harm came to someone because I was being pedantic - it was a no-win situation. But it does seem to me that I was bullied into what amounted to ‘noble cause risk taking’ which is rightly forbidden. Of course, had he been on foot and clearly directed me through to make way for a colleague then that would’ve been fine and legal. But I wasn’t happy with this at all.
After I got home, I emailed my IAM Masters mentor - himself a very experienced police class 1 - to ask for his view on it.
here's his reply, slightly edited to cut any information that might identify him as I don't have his permission to do that.
It is up to the police driver to wait if he cannot get through. A driver cannot be expected to break the law. If you go through a red traffic light to let a police car through and there just happens to be a camera on it you will get a ticket in the post.
I have a couple of talks on blue lights and one of them is to try and get people to see it from the police drivers aspect. The police driver is at risk if he uses the blues and two's incorrectly and causes an accident. If there was not way of getting through the blocked junction then he should have switched his two tones off so as to prevent someone being forced out onto the main road and possibly causing an accident. (Silent approach). Or he could have got out, done some traffic duty and cleared himself a space. You would have been covered then.
Roadcraft page 238 and HC Rule 219.
Reply ends - this is me again:
I've had one previous run-in with the police over an emergency driver (c20 years ago), when I safely pulled over to facilitate his overtake and he later said that overtaking me had caused him to hit a bus coming the other way 200 yards further down the road . . . (so why did he do the overtake? I asked - among other questions) After a long exchange of letters and a personal visit from the colleague who had been in the passenger seat of the police car (and privately told me that it was the driver's first real call since training and the red mist had come down), it was formally acknowledged in writing that I had not been as they had said 'involved' in but had merely witnessed the polac. Should I get a ticket in the post, then this might perhaps be the second example . . .
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