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Safe Emergency Responses in Traffic
Recently, I've witnessed emergency vehicles (mostly private ambulances and Police cars), passing other vehicles on the right side. From day one I was always taught to pass on the left, because according to the law, vehicles yielding right of way must pull to the right and stop. I witnessed these emergency vehicles come close to being struck multiple times as motorists reacted to the lights and sirens by pulling to the right, into the path of the emergency vehicle! Some of these incidents happened on straight stretches of roadway, while others happened at an intersection.
What's your policy on this? Ours is to pass on the left whenever possible.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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Ours is to pass on the left whenever possible.
We don't have a set policy, except to drive with Due Regard. For the most part we do try to pass on the left whenever possible. There have been times I was driving and would stay behind someone in the L lane and stay behing (changing siren tone, air horn, etc) until they moved over.
The few times when passing on the right are in situations where there is a lot of traffic in the left lane because of a turn to the highway ramp etc. In such cases we would proceed slowly on the right. On a straight road though, there really is no reason to pass on the right.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Oomkes on
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Cascade
It is actually worse on the other side where it connects to I-196 in Georgetown\Jamestown\Hooterville. Closer to the lake, more lake effect and all those bridges.
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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on
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Wow! I agree, whoever thought that up should be taken out and maimed!
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It gets better. This is supposed to help the flow of traffic. But they add a minimum of one more traffic light\stop sign\yield for each turn.
And the idiots who program the traffic lights have not a clue how to get and keep traffic moving. For straight thru traffic they'll have the light at the left turn change to green so everyone starts moving, then the one at the main intersection, so by the time the first light traffic gets there, they have to slow down for the main intersection traffic to get moving.
Then, since our state is flush with cash, now they have to plow the snow in these things, which is a clusterfoxtrot. And during the summer, there's grass to be mowed. In addition to needing more right of way and property and pavement and..........you get the idea.
Truly an idiotic idea by some moronic, stupid engineer.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew on
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Any time I drive the ambulance I go as far to the left as possible, but sometimes the only way to get around is on the right. For example, on a highway service road where there's four lanes (one left turning, two straight, and one right turning). If the left turning and two straight are filled up and the right turning lane is empty, why try and shift all of the traffic to that right turning lane? I just go (at a slower than usual pace) through the right turning lane.
Either way, it seems that people around here are uneducated about what to do anyway, or they don't care. I've had so many people just sit in front of me and not yield, I've had people blocking intersections, and I've had people pull out right in front of me. I feel as if it's only getting worse, too.
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I hear ya. My favorite
moronsmotorists are the ones who seem to completely ignore you behind them with lights flashing and horn/siren blaring, and then when they finally notice you they STOP in the middle of the road!
We should start teaching school children, "Pull to the right for sirens and lights!". Then by the time they're out there driving, we'll have a smart generation of drivers.
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