Barrelling down the country's motorways at 130mph in a people carrier covered in blue lights and making a variety of very loud howling noises, it is absolutely remarkable to watch how the great Brtish public react, or more often don't.
Particularly fun things to do when an emergency vehicle comes up from behind fast:
1. Slam on your brakes. This is properly scary - and usually results in a swearing driver and a couple of bug-eyed elite healthcare professionals. This happens more often than you'd believe.
2. Do absolutely nothing. Even when the driver puts on the second, even louder siren and pulls over the right side of the lane so the blue lights are blinding you in the wing mirror. Some people honestly don't notice - usually women (just an observation). Others notice, but just stare at you evily - usually White Van Men (just an observation). If the emergency is particularly pressing, and/or the driver is particularly gung ho we undertake in the middle lane.
3. Say to yourself, "I'll just overtake the next car, or maybe the next one... actually there's a space in front of the next one." This is very, very boring. Get out of the fast lane immediately. Into any space. People WILL make room for you. Women are slightly more guilty of this than men.
4. Pull out into the fast lane without looking just as we are about to pass you. Usually superminis with a death-wish. This will get you and others killed.
5. Pull over immediately - then slip stream behind. Men driving big recent german saloons are at least usually subtle and hang well back, 200-300m. Boy racers hang on the bumper (more usual on city streets). Whether people speed or not is not really any of our business, but if you are thought to be endangering our lives we will not hesitate to make a 'phone call and get you busted even faster than your hot hatch can go from 0-60.
Obviously anyone on this forum would never do any of these things. The writing style is meant to amuse rather than lecture.
The offenders are a minority, yet a persistant one. The vast majority of people do the right thing and get out of the way as soon as they spot us, even if that means flooring it past a vehicle inside. If your car is not powerful enough to do this then don't brake, put on your indicator and wait until you're past the inside car - hopefully they'll brake and make room for you.
Stay safe
Ronnie
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Well, I would not wish to get in your way, Ronnie, even if I envy your right to motor at a halfway decent pace without risk!
Only, it's sometimes hard to distinguish which lot are showing the blue lights and making the noises; perhaps you should agitate for another colour of light.
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or at least get a directional siren so we get an idea of where you are coming from,as it stands most of us look around but see nothing during the day.But hear a siren which is coming from everywhere,Not complaining as you do a great job.but could they not sort the siren out?
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Steve
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I agree, it is often hard to work out the direction of sirens. Especially in a well built car. I'm not sure if there is any real solution to this. I seem to remember from physics lessons that lower frequency sounds are easier to locate than higher ones. Maybe we all need sirens like on New York fire engines which make that deep resonating honking sound.
The vehicles I have rode in have a siren with 3 different tones. A wailing noise reminiscent of American cop shows, which is used when cruising. A more rapid cycling wooo-wooo-wooo which sounds a bit more british, and a very rapidly occillating fequency which is hard to describe, but sounds kind of squelchy. Then there is a seperate and very loud siren which I'm pretty sure is pointed straight ahead and produces a very old fashioned bee-baa noise. Some road users are totally oblivious to all of these. Perhaps they have hearing problems, which I guess is what the blue strobes are for.
As for different coloured lights, I've noticed the police sometimes use red lights. Personally, I mix them up with utility vehicles - but then maybe I'm just not very bright.
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or at least get a directional siren so we get an idea of where you are coming from
Glad it's not just me. In a built-up area the sound just bounces around, and, before some bright spark says anything, it's either Radio 4 on quietly or nothing at all. I wonder if the radiating siren effect is covered in Ronnie's training?
Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land
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Glad it's not just me. In a built-up area the sound just bounces around, and, before some bright spark says anything, it's either Radio 4 on quietly or nothing at all.
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I agree and have R4 / R5 on quietly but in addition virtually always all the windows are closed.
I suspect high levels of music is one cause.
I also suspect that there is an auto pilot effect. I am in my lane, sticking to it and comfortable so I do not need to look at what is going on behind me. Then when vehicles in front deviate a sort of panic sets in.
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The squelchy noise is meant to be more "directional", featuring a range of higher frequency white noise (or is it pink noise on these sirens? Must google.....). The higher the frequency of a sound, the more location specific it is. It's for this reason that home cinema systems try and place the tweeters at around head level whilst the lower frequency source can be pretty much anywhere in the room.
My brother has some amusing tales of blue-light calls in and around Heathrow. Never mind that you might end up with a brightly lit, fully sirened people carrier full of heavily armed policemen in your boot, where on earth's the short term car park?
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I thought that modern sirens made full use of the doppler effect and therefore are supposed to be more "directional".
Remember it mentioned during a physics lesson .... but the above statement is about all I can remember!
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The doppler effect is the shortening of sound/light/radio waves as an object moves towards you and the lengthening of same as they move away. That's why a siren seems higher pitched as it approaches and lower as it moves away; the wavelength of the sound relative to your position changes.
Only effective if the object is moving reasonably quickly relative to your position. Naff-all use if you are travelling at similar speeds in the same direction.
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Just yesterday, watching an ambulance trying to make its way through Hammersmith. One-way two lane road obstructed on one side by parked cars. Some clever van driver, rather than getting a move on and pulling over at a suitable point just froze, pulled over to the right and encouraged the ambulance to squeeze through the 4ft gap he'd left between himself and the parked cars. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
I think half the problem is that when they hear the siren people panic. The urgency of the situation takes the mind over and all they think is "got to let this guy past" without considering what would be the best way to go about it. Perhaps something to add to the driving test.
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Life is complex; it has real and imaginary parts.
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I seem to remember a while ago that they experimented with short bursts of white noise in the normal siren. Apparently it made it much easier to determine where the siren was coming from. However, like most good ideas in this country, nothing ever came of it.
Andy
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Remember years ago living in Nrfolk. Sunday afternoon driving down the main road through upwell & Outwell at 30ish in the 30 limit. Woman behind me in an Escort, hear 2 tones and in my mirror see panda car coming down behind me, B&2s going. I indicate and slow and stop into the kerb, woman behind me nearly runs into boot of mine then swerves to avoid me straight into path of Police car. How he missed her I don't know, its only just over 2 cars wide. I think it involved the kerb and some prayers.
Jim
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Short bursts of white noise (sort of hiss) much better and not so frightening. The original very loud hew-haw I found horrendous and one just cringed. Which helped no one's driving.
I still suffer mentally from the effect of an over-zealous fire-engine driver going too fast down a narrow country lane with me trying to quickly find a place to pull over and getting a bent rear panel when he could not stop.
Lohl, and it turned out he was on just a practice ! !
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Forget all those electronically synthesized "wails" and "yelps", Ronnie. What you need, is one of these.
www.fedsig.com/products/index.php?id=111
We had them on the roof of some of our older ambulances and believe me absolutely *no-one* could ignore them no matter how hard they tried. When we fired it up, the dashboard lights would dim and the roof would start resonating. Cars that previously would just stop in their lane suddenly found that the curb/pavement and ultimately out of our way, was a much nicer place to be. It was the ultimate weapon against a certain driver who not only didn't make an attempt to let us past, but thought it fit to put his window down (massive error on his part!!!) and give us a well known one-fingered salute. Double glazed Mercs and the notoriously tomb-like Lexus were no match for the mighty "Q".
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Like all decent citizens, I give way to emergency vehicles, pulling over etc.
However there are times when it is not obvious what is best to do - if the road is a bit narrow and there's oncoming traffic, pulling in to the left might just mean the ambulance / fire engine slows down behind you.
130 mph a half-decent speed - if we were all allowed to go that fast, we'd need a heck of a lot more emergency vehicles!
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E34kid has got it spot on, speaking as someone who drives those vehicles.
"I think half the problem is that when they hear the siren people panic. The urgency of the situation takes the mind over and all they think is "got to let this guy past" without considering what would be the best way to go about it. Perhaps something to add to the driving test."
Reggie
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I think the situation has got worse since the publicity of the Mark Freeman case where he got fined for going through a red light to free up the route.
If you already have points on your licence the outcome to the individual could be very bad.
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it is absolutely remarkable to watch how the great British public react, or more often don't.
Interesting examples of what not to do ,but you have not actually given any advice on the title of your post "How to respond to 999 vehicles". Many drivers rarely encounter blues and twos and are scared, intimidated and confused when they are encountered. So what are your guidelines Ronnie?
SGB
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I drive fire engines on a day to day basis. The Emergencey fire appliance driver course (EFAD) teaches drivers to hold back from situations, so we have more time to react to drivers actions, it keeps the truck rolling giving better speed through the blue light run. If you are up drivers bottoms no wonder they are scared, keep well back let them react and you will sail through. Also having four firefighters on board with you keeps them happy as your not braking, accelerating all the time, and they do let you know if you have given them a crap run.
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Ronnie, your original post strikes me as a bit arrogant. Your blue lights, horns and flashing headlights are there to assist your progress by informing other road users that you wish to pass urgently. They are not to enable you to intimidate other drivers by blinding them, driving too close, undertaking or any other reprehensible actions. If your training has not instilled in you the mental ability to be cognizant of the possible failings of the ordinary driver then you and the public are being badly served.
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I don't see undertaking, especially by an emergency vehicle as reprehensible.
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It is considered to be a dangerous action in this country. It probably shouldn't be but many drivers are not prepared for it, particularly when the passing vehicle is doing 130 mph.
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Yes but speeding is considered a dangerous action yet I have no problems with a trained officer doing it.
When I'm being murdered/choking/drowning, I'll feel better knowing that the emergency services are racing to get to me.
If you hear an emergency vehicle, you should be prepared for anything.
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What you should be prepared for and what many drivers are expecting may be very different. In the real world we are all fallible and emergency drivers should be aware of this and fully capable of acting accordingly.
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I nearky had a head on crash with a police car today!
Turning left into a side road I could see a queue of traffic waiting to turn onto my road. As I turned I was met head on by a police car overtaking the queue of stationery traffic with lights and siren on. I literally had to slam on my brakes and swerve to avoid it. Whether it was because of the direction or the trees at the side of the street or whatever, but I had not heard the siren. I actually felt quite angry afterwards as I think that the police car was totally in the wrong with the speed it was doing, on the wrong side of the road approaching a T junction.
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IMO people should read Ronnie's post with their relaxed head on, not their serious head.
It's becoming a sad world that everything anyone says is always taken seriously, and each word and phrase analysed to the n'th degree.
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Agreed, as much as I love this place, I find it very difficult to post anything, even in jest, without it being far too heavily analysed by various posters.
After they have analysed your post they normally tell you that you are talking rubbish, and cite some uncommon and extreme example to try and prove it.
Give Ronnie a break, he was making a half-serious point in a not very serious way. This business of taking every word people type in it's literal context is ridiculous and frankly quite tiring.
Blue
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I'm glad most of you enjoyed reading my post, and not really surprised that a few of you didn't.
Just to clarify - I don't drive emergency vehicles. I'm a health care professional - hence a passenger. Nor do we always go 130mph. This speed scares the hell out of me - but if we have a sick kid in some far away place who is actively trying to die, we will drive "Golf Lima Foxtrot" (If you're not familiar with this expression, you can probably work it out) to try to get to it and give it the specialist care we can provide.
I'm sorry if anyone thinks I'm being arrogant. Maybe these are the same people who don't like 999 vehicles overtaking them? Don't mean to start a flame war, but it's really not that hard to get out of the fast lane when an emergency vehicle is behind you...
I added some advise towards the end of my post about how to respond to 999 vehicles on the motorway. It's very short because it's very simple.
I have not given advise on how respond to 999 vehicles on A roads or indeed city streets because (a) I'm not yet experienced enough to comment (b) It's a highly dynamic problem and there are few hard and fast rules. I'm sure some active emergency drivers on this forum may be able to step in here!
Cheers
Ronnie
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Agreed, as much as I love this place, I find it very difficult to post anything, even in jest, without it being far too heavily analysed by various posters. After they have analysed your post they normally tell you that you are talking rubbish, and cite some uncommon and extreme example to try and prove it. Give Ronnie a break, he was making a half-serious point in a not very serious way. This business of taking every word people type in it's literal context is ridiculous and frankly quite tiring. Blue
Well put Blue.
This place has become the domain of the pedant and it's all the worse for it. Disgusted from Tunbridge Wells will always wade in to a thread and moralise based on their (lack of) experience. The irrelevant "oooh, I've been driving 96 years and it's never happened to me" type response is at best trite and at worst pink fluffy dice annoying. So what if it's never happened to you? It clearly has happened to the original poster and they are seeking info from others with similar experience, not some wally reaffirming his/her position as the best/safest/luckiest/dullest person on the planet.
It's a kind of tourettes of the keyboard and frankly I pity those who suffer from it.
Rant over.
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And I just know someone will be along in a minute having searched the backroom for a post where I've done exactly what I despise. That's pink fluffy dice annoying too and falls into the same category. Why take every thinking so sodding literally? Hmmmm?
::drums fingers::
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! I need a coffee.
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::Opens mouth to speak::
Actually - never mind. It's probably safer if I don't say anything ;-)
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Completely agree Alan, its one of the things thats dulled my enjoyment of this board in recent months. e.g. "Oh you wish to change the XXXXX that will affect your insurance"
Also responses by people who just haven't got a clue.
Jim
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I know I kinda started it, but can we now end this discussion here, and hope that the Back Room collectively takes note? (i.e. not directed at anyone in particular).
Thank you
smokie, BR Moderator
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