AIBU to think drivers should reverse rather than cross red lights?

Emergency service vehicles don’t expect you to go through red lights. That is why they sit behind you with their lights flashing, but their sirens turned off.

At an optimistic 10 seconds per car that's over 4 minutes for 25 cars to get out of the way, but the lights will have changed in 1 to 2 minutes. Or, if a few people leave a couple of metres or more, ideally including the one at the front (as is good practice), they could all have shimmied out of the way anyway in half the time so the ambulance is already at the front of the queue before the lights change and no one has to cross a red light except the ambulance:)

I think's its easier to educate everyone to leave a little more space than it is to educate 30 million drivers that now they need to reverse when their see blue lights. After all, when you see police, fire or amblaunces making their way through heavy traffic on busy roads that's generally what happens. Everyone moves forwards and to the left (in the UK) creating a lane down the middle of the traffic for them to carve their way through. If people left a bit of space between themselves and the car in front in queueing traffic (and teh car in front stops a few metres short of the lights) the same can be achieved :)

Nothing preventing you leaving more though, is there. As is taught in advanced drving :)

Question for you. How long do you think it would take a queue of 25 cars to reverse, one at a time, out of the way of an ambulance? And how long do you think the average traffic lights stays red for?

Ambulance drivers are trained to switch off sirens if conditions aee such that it's not safe for people to get out of the way. If sirens are sounding and blue lights flashing then the driver at least can see a safe maneuver you could theoretically do but it's still your responsibility to decide what you can do safely and legally to get out of their way and if you can't see a safe and legal option it's best not to move until you can. Yanbu not to move across a red signal, but yabu to expect a whole load of cars to correctly execute a reversal maneuver - there woukd definitely be bumps and scrapes if they tried.

Leave space in front of you in a queue and you'll have space to shuffle out of the way if a blue light needs to get through.

Tyres to tarmac.

I think the most likely outcomes of this ill-concieved approach are either the car in front of the ambulance doesn't see it, stopping everyone, or a car reverses straight into the ambulance, delaying it even more ;)

Either way, it'll be a sight to behold! I'm not convinced we'll find a decent GB team though sadly.

Synchronised parallel parking - maybe it could become a new Olympic sport?

The emergency services make it very clear that they don't want you to do anything out of the ordinary to 'help'. If there is space to pull over on a non-hazardous part of the road, do so. Otherwise, keep going until there is an opportunity to pull over. If you're at traffic lights with a red light, stay in position. They will find a safe path around you if they can.

The reversing idea would be quite funny to see (assuming it wasn't actually holding up an ambulance)- given how useless some people are at parallel parking I imagine it would take about an hour. Shit parking but in formation, endless fun.

I didn’t vote because neither option is safe. You don’t cross a red light and it’s definitely dangerous for everyone to start reversing. You stay put until the red light changes to green, go through it and pull over safely to allow the emergency services to pass. There is a reason the ambulance didn’t have their sirens on at the red light.

How would space be made for the additional emergency vehicles called to the smash ups created by this co-ordinated reversing manoeuvre?

This is what I was taught, stop so you can see the vehicle in fronts tyres where they touch the road

Hilarious that you think that can happen. Just look at motorways and the effect of one car braking that can cause a tailback for miles because of the "thinking time". Look at where you have huge groups of people entering/leaving, say, a stadium where it can take a long time for the people at the back to start moving forward after the people at the front have started to move. You'll never get everyone moving together at the same time. The only way that could ever happen is if the vehicles were all automatic and linked to eachother via satellite/bluetooth etc and all moved in synch at exactly the same time/speed.

No need for the snide anti cyclist comment. Cyclists know they are at risk in any blue light situation because motorists are even less likely to take proper observation than usual. So most cyclists just get out of the way as far as possible. The idea that cyclists would be pissed off to not be able to cycle up the inside of a stationary traffic queue in this situation is just ridiculous.

Neither. One is downright stupid, the other is illegal and enforced even if it might make sense sometimes.

I pity the emergency vehicle drivers, if many of the cars in front of them are full of morons thinking they must immediately choose one of two options: either drive through the red light, or start reversing.

How would this happen? At red lights there may be no space to back into. At most a couple feet. And people seem to struggle driving forward let alone a coordinated reverse!