There are no laws in Australia that define how fast an emergency vehicle can go. The laws differ slightly in wording in each State, but they basically say that it must be safe and expedient.
Open to interpretation but the Police won't hesitate to throw the book at you if you come a cropper while driving with lights and sirens.....
As for POV's- no where in Oz can a POV be fitted with lights and sirens and driven under those conditions.
"due regard" = "safe and expedient" - and in my RFS there's an SOP that limits most vehicles travelling lights and sirens to not more than 20 km/h (about 12.4 mph) over the speed limit. Not law, but if you're driving outside the SOP's and are involved in an MVC, then watch out because the Court will crucify you. And rightly so, fire trucks are not designed, built, or loaded to be driven like a pursuit car.
Permalink Reply by T.J. on August 21, 2008 at 7:41am
our law in michigan is 5 over, but with a firetruck and the hills, its hard to get the truck over that anyways, but pov's have to watch it, and we're real picky on who gets lights and sirens on their pov:)
Permalink Reply by T.J. on August 21, 2008 at 7:45am
2 years ago we had a neighbor department in Traverse City hit a car at an intersection with a pumper going down a hill, it was nasty................ a mom and daughter died and the dad was ok and the firefighter who was responding to a chimney fire and only had been a firefighter for a year is now in prison. Its not worth it to speed at all!!!!!!!!!!!
Several years ago we had a State Trooper give us a safety class and he said that you can drive above the speed limit but you had to drive at a safe speed then he said if you are driving slower then the posted speed limit and have an accident it was an unsafe speed kinda a catch 22 huh.
Per our SOP all POV must obay all laws including the posted speed limit and Fire apparatus may be operated at a max of 10 mph over the posted speed limit