......at a major junction, nightmare lights and a police van is approaching from behind and you know he wants the lane you are in!!??
This happened to me earlier, on my way home from work, around 4.30pm and traffic was pretty bad, as it always is in Manchester. I was at a major traffic light junction with 3 lanes, I was at the front with a couple of cars behind me, the police van had sirens and blue lights flashing.
There was no other way for him to go so I had to move. I immediately thought forwards and infront of the car next to me, so I wasnt in the way of the traffic already flowing from the left and right, but he decided to go forwards too!! I was now nearing the centre of the junction and to be honest I was scared stiff of someone crashing into me.
Anyway the police van went screaming past and I managed to reverse back a little so I could then wait for the traffic lights to turn to green, oh and to avoid a bus crunching the front of my car. All this was over in a matter of seconds but I did think what should I do? Did I do the right thing or should I have stayed where I was and waited for the lights to go green?, hard to think when all you can hear is screaming sirens and see flashing lights in your rear view mirror.
Home now but need a stiff drink :-)
The funny thing is a similar thing happened on Sunday when in a friends car - gladley I didn't stall my car as she did!!
GC
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I would suggest the best thing to do is edge forward slowely moving as far to the edge of the road as poss, or if your in the middle lane, edge closer to the opposite side to which the police car is trying to pass you - if the drivers in the outside lanes follow suit then there should be enough room for plod to pass without you ending up too far across the line.
Alternatively, if there is no room for the above - ive seen this a few times - wait until plod is right behind you and drive through the red light with him. Drivers approaching from the left or right will stop to let the police through so no real danger of being broadsided.
Not sure as to the legal side of dong this, but the police car in question will be too busy to worry about whether you 'ran a red', and will thankfull you got out of his way(as it were).
As for traffic light cameras - it should be obvious from the picture the reasons for you going through the red light, so i think you will have good ground for appeal.
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Technically you can get done for going through the red light, and no doubt, one day people will start to, but I usually do what you did, signal and checking the mirror for cyclists creep forwards in front of a car beside you, or if the road is such that you cant, I sometime just drive to block the road from the left, with signals and main beam hooter or whaetever seems right at the time. This also blocks the traffic flow from the left so the 999 vehecle has less to worry about, but keep signalling left, because if you aren't they are taught to treat you as if you are unaware of their presence. (you may be deaf for all they know)
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I was involved in a similar situation a number of years ago.
A police car was coming up behind me with the lights on red.
Fortunately, the driver who was on green had the sense to allow me to proceed accross the junction in front of him with the police car behind. As soon as I could I pulled to the left and allowed the police car to pass me.
Hugo
"Forever indebted to experience of others"
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Hope you're calmed down now, GC, must have been a scarey moment.
I think in the circumstances you did the best thing you could do, so please don't let this make you nervous in any way of similar situations.
I had something remotely similar (although not in your league!) the other day, when I was turning right onto a main road, towards a set of lights where the traffic was stationary in my direction. To have any chance of getting out at that junction, you *have* to ease across the left-heading lane once it clears, and then just hope that someone lets you into the right hand lane. I'd pulled across, and no-one would let me through, there were cars right behind me, and suddenly an emergency police car appeared, trying to come up the lane I was straddling. Not nice. Somehow I managed to give them room to get throgh but I've no idea how!
Anyway, you did ok in a bad situation.
Take care
HF
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If there is no room to the side, then I would make sure that cross traffic has stopped then proceed through the red light. Once through the juction pull over to the side to let the emergency vehicle through which also indicates that your intention was soley to give way and not to jump the lights. I drove an ambulance for years and would always be grateful when someone did that.
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This happened to me a few weeks ago on the A13 on my way into Docklands, through the nightmare roadworks they're doing there. I was at a set of traffic lights, there were streams of traffic crossing, and an ambulance with blues and twos on weaved its way through the three lanes of traffic behind me.
Unfortunately there was nowhere for me or the other unfortunates at the head of the queue to go, and there was no way I was edging forward into the continuous stream of traffic passing inches in front of my bumper (even if a paramedic was right behind me).
So unfortunately the ambulance had to sit there for about a minute or two until the lights changed. I think they realised the situation as they turned off their siren...
In this case it seemed to be bad traffic management in roadworks that prevents emergency vehicles getting through - the lanes were narrower than normal, the traffic lights were situated closer to the crossing traffic than normal, and there were no verges as normal because of the proximity of the A13 roadworks.
mike
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The problem I have had in similar situations is spotting their indicators going amongst all the high intensity flashing lights.
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I was in road works the other day there are two lanes of traffic in opposite directions with cones in the middle and cones to either side, the road goes down to a roundabout and was a nightmare this paticular evening. there was an ambulance about 2 cars back from me and im sure im not the only one who felt utterly helpless to move out the way, all the cones are roped together and there was a good half mile of traffic to go until the roundabout! We sure as hell all moved sharpish when we could though!!
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