Can police / other emergency services use blue lights when they like?

[BonesInTheOcean]

Can police / other emergency services use blue lights when they like? If they're a bit late for their tea?

Also in line of duty when they are doing the arresting other police-y people, they say "I have been in consultation with...." do they have to go and speak to someone?

My brother in law says they have a button to change the colour of the traffic lights in the ambulance! Haha.

My sister says that they use blue lights and no siren when the person is dead, but I thought they only use the siren to get through traffic.

@TheCanyon

thanks for fab link

this made me laugh

Definitely no to the first question. In reality most the experienced staff I work with (paramedic) don't always use there blue lights even when we are supposed to if traffic conditions are moving freely and the call is to a patient who is clearly not time critical.

The only time we would use them whilst not on an allocated job is if we came across a dangerous incident (not necessarily medical) on the road like a broken down car and would use the ambulance to fend off the scene until police or highways arrive, but as soon as we called it in the control room would generally make it a "running call" even though there were no patients in order to set the vehicle as unavailable for calls fudge the response times average with a 0 seconds response

I wonder why teaching the difference sounds to learner drives is not part of the test or Highway code.
I've been driving for 20 years, never knew one meant "coming" the other meant "MOVE"!

it would be such useful information

Going back a few years ago now, but when paramedics took me & DD to hospital in a non-emergency situation (unplanned homebirth, no midwives could come out to us so we had to go into hospital), they drove normally for the first five miles, then stuck on the blue lights (no siren) & shot off down the dual carriageway. ExP was driving behind the ambulance, and absolutely shat himself. It was early hours of the morning so no other traffic on the road. I still have no idea why they did it, but even if it should never have happened, it definitely did.

@sadeyedladyofthelowlandsea

Going back a few years ago now, but when paramedics took me & DD to hospital in a non-emergency situation (unplanned homebirth, no midwives could come out to us so we had to go into hospital), they drove normally for the first five miles, then stuck on the blue lights (no siren) & shot off down the dual carriageway. ExP was driving behind the ambulance, and absolutely shat himself. It was early hours of the morning so no other traffic on the road. I still have no idea why they did it, but even if it should never have happened, it definitely did.

It's the individual crews decision on whether or not to use blue lights in the way in to hospital.

You, presumably, had one paramedic or emt (NOT a midwife) in the back with the sole responsibility for a newly post partum women who had not been examined by a midwife and a newborn baby who had not been examined by a midwife or paediatrician. Their threshold for escalating to blue lights would have and should have been extremely low. They did nothing wrong or against protocol or against the law.

@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba

I wonder why teaching the difference sounds to learner drives is not part of the test or Highway code. I've been driving for 20 years, never knew one meant "coming" the other meant "MOVE"!

it would be such useful information

Because it isn't true!!

If the same sound is on for ages and ages people become deaf to it, therefore they are changed regularly so most people take notice.

I had an unexpected home delivery and had to be moved to hospital because of a minor complication. Te paramedics had to move me to the hospital and had a bit of a meeting type chat stating why they were using the blue lights and if they all agreed (three of them). So I assumed their was some sort of criteria and they had to follow. This was the middle of the night so no traffic but if we came to a corner or traffic lights they blared the siren for a couple of seconds and said it was to warm any oncoming traffic. The lights were on the whole way.

@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba

I wonder why teaching the difference sounds to learner drives is not part of the test or Highway code. I've been driving for 20 years, never knew one meant "coming" the other meant "MOVE"!

it would be such useful information

Definitely isn't true. Police cars have three or four sounds which are turned on by pressing the horn on the steering wheel once the lights are activated. Each extra press changes the sound again. Hence we almost always use the first siren. Routinely we might change it if sat behind a car for ages that doesn't notice you. Change up the sound so they finally look on their rear view mirror (normally followed by an obvious freak out by said driver, jerk of the whee and instant braking requiring police car to brake sharply also!)

The other reason we change the siren is if driving in convoy. We try not to have the same siren on each car so people can tell there is more than one.

Emergency lights and sirens isn't always be justified but can be at the discretion of the officer (for example to require a vehicle to pull over). There are however rules as to when we can and cannot do that.

We have a "bullhorn" button as well as the 3 siren tones on the ambulance for when someone is totally oblivious to us does something to really annoy us

@Clymene the exact same thing happened to my ds and like you I thought they did the blue lights and fast driving just to try and distract him in some way. Looking back now and reading this I realise how poorly he was

Wow, until now I thought my ambulance ride with my DS with croup was blue lighted only because they wanted to get through traffic and ‘get him comfortable’.

@snowdropsandcrocuses

what isn't true? I was referring to the two distinct sounds they were describing in the article that was linked.
I didn't say they were the only sounds!!!
And my point was that it'd be useful if drivers had some idea that different sounds mean different things.
we live next to a road that's kind of a main road leading to a big hospital and 2 firestations so I often hear both types and of course police whizzing past. I try to guess from the sound what it is before I see it and sometimes I'm right other times I can't even recognise it.
Now I'm enlightened that it's because there are a lot of different ones for each type of vehicle.
(and I also always say "hope you get there in time" )

thanks for your post

@EgonSpengler2020 yes, that makes sense, although it was just me & DD in the back of the ambulance, the paramedics sat up front for the journey! There had been complications with the birth, and although DD & I seemed fine by that point, they did absolutely the right thing. I really, really wish I'd taken the name of the paramedic who was in 'charge' of us because he was brilliant. He even came up to see us in the hospital when he clocked off his shift to see how we were. I'd love to thank him properly, but I was a bit overwhelmed at the time...

[quote ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba]@snowdropsandcrocuses

what isn't true? I was referring to the two distinct sounds they were describing in the article that was linked.
I didn't say they were the only sounds!!!
And my point was that it'd be useful if drivers had some idea that different sounds mean different things.
we live next to a road that's kind of a main road leading to a big hospital and 2 firestations so I often hear both types and of course police whizzing past. I try to guess from the sound what it is before I see it and sometimes I'm right other times I can't even recognise it.
Now I'm enlightened that it's because there are a lot of different ones for each type of vehicle.
(and I also always say "hope you get there in time" )

thanks for your post[/quote]
It isn't true that the sounds have different meanings. They're just there as alternates when some muppet isn't noticing the emergency vehicle behind them, as changing the noise is more likely to make them notice.

[quote ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba]@snowdropsandcrocuses

what isn't true? I was referring to the two distinct sounds they were describing in the article that was linked.
I didn't say they were the only sounds!!!
And my point was that it'd be useful if drivers had some idea that different sounds mean different things.
we live next to a road that's kind of a main road leading to a big hospital and 2 firestations so I often hear both types and of course police whizzing past. I try to guess from the sound what it is before I see it and sometimes I'm right other times I can't even recognise it.
Now I'm enlightened that it's because there are a lot of different ones for each type of vehicle.
(and I also always say "hope you get there in time" )

thanks for your post[/quote]
It isn't true that different sounds have different meanings. It may be in America but here they do not differentiate in the same way

@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba what isnt true is that the sounds mean anything. What is happening is two things either they use a certain sound because of the road and how the sound will carry or they change the sound because humans stop hearing a sound after awhile.

Ha took too long to type.

I used to do neonatal ICU retrieval and the decision to go “priority one” always had to be cleared by myself as senior medic and the transporting ambulance service, with an acknowledgment that the risk to the public (and crew) was outweighed by the benefit to the baby.

No they can’t use blues when they feel like it. It may appear like it sometimes but jobs get cancelled as quickly as they come.

The sirens do not have different meanings. They are different frequencies; the long nee-naw travels further forwards and back, the faster neenaw circulates around better so is/should be used for traffic lights/junctions and the very rapid annoying one is best for pedestrians so good for zebra crossings etc.

You don’t need to consult CPS for an arrest. You can chose to arrest yourself when the criteria is there, that decision is up to the officer. CPS authorise a charge which means someone goes to court etc which is based on an evidential threshold.

I’m a midwife not a paramedic but have spent a lot of time in ambulances transferring patients etc.

No blue lights are never used if not needed. Driving at high speed is dangerous for and only done if absolutely required. I must admit to feeling all important when they ask me if I want a blue light transfer or not (as with an obstetric patient I am more able then them to determine what constitutes an emergency).

There are different sirens but they do not mean different things. They simply change so that people don’t get used to the same sound and drown it out.

They can’t change the traffic lights but they can go through on red (safely) if needed.

I used to work round the corner from a cop shop. They totally did blue light to get back for the end of their shift. You could set your watch by it.

[quote Ohmygodyesthatsit]@ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba what isnt true is that the sounds mean anything. What is happening is two things either they use a certain sound because of the road and how the sound will carry or they change the sound because humans stop hearing a sound after awhile.[/quote]
@Ohmygodyesthatsit

thanks for clarifying that.