Someone on our street complained about a fire engine

[FrazzledRockRed]

It was about 4am.
A fire engine was parked on our road with flashing lights but no siren.”
A neighbour came out shouting (and this woke me up). He was shouting at the firemen saying the lights were disturbing him.

If you’re that sensitive to light get blackout blinds.

Is this in any way normal? Someone could be losing their home or life. Admittedly I didn’t see any fire or smoke, but still.

People like that should be arrested and face court, pure and simple.

If once in a lifetime the lights of an emergency ambulance wakes you up and you go ballistic then you need serious psychological counselling for your temper, stress and anti social personality.

My husband is a firefighter and if there wasn’t smoke/flames etc they would have been there as first responders to the ambulance service, a lot of people panic when he goes to responder jobs because they expect to see paramedics.
Absoulutly out of order of the neighbour. They will have had a good laugh about him once finished.

Every village has one. At least you know where yours lives.

The lights should be turned off once they have reached the incident and done their initial assessment
The lights are there to warn approaching and to protect the firecrew and the scene of the incident.

@pinkcalluns I support the right of fire engine etc to just ram obstructing vehicles with no comebacks. You can bet your arse a fire engine could shove most cars with no bother.
I'm not sure if this really happens but I have been told that if an illegally parked car obstructs a launch the will push it out of the way with their tractor. Imagine what twenty or thirty tonnes of tractor would do to a BMW.

*oops - for ambulance read firefighter (but the situation is the same)

That's nothing! Years ago, the house semi-detached to mine was well ablaze and the local twats teenagers were stoning the firefighters!
Fortunately I was pally with the hells angels chapter across the road so I got them out to run interference and apart from having to scrub everything to get the smoke out, we lived...

If I was the fire guys I would make a point of going there regularly with my lights just to piss him off! Most emergency responders will leave their lights on so others know where they are, it is usually protocol to leave them on so they are easily found in emergency. Yes, even emergency workers need emergency help. Also, easy for public to see them. When they are roadside and working on the vehicle it is one of the unsafest places to be. Many people are injured or killed in this position of the job.

My parents lived in London in the 70s and had a favourite restaurant which was down a lane with no parking signs all over it. Obviously no-one too any notice and parked there anyway.

One night the restaurant caught fire and the engine couldn't get passed all the cars and a set of firemen went along the whole road and tipped all the cars onto their side to let the engine through.....no-one parked there after that.

My Dickhead neighbour complained about an ambulance blocking the road, when he wanted to come down it to come home from work. He actually walked into the house they were in to complain. I know they were double parked, I know he could not get through as with cars parked all the way down on both sides of the road (hence nowhere else for the ambulance to park) it was totally blocked, but the guy was having a suspected stroke and was HIS UNCLE!!

I only know this because his cousins told me!

Fire engines don't barge cars out of the way because they're too expensive. Damage a fire engine and it's off the run (unavailable to respond to incidents) They cost well over £100,000.

Just asked my ex- fireman (now paramedic) DP says the lights would have been on to warn other road users of 'an incident' and that they may have been obstructing the road. There is a particular pattern of lights both in a fire engine and an ambulance which is 'on scene'.

My dickhead neighbour shouted at the ambulance crew who were attending to his neighbour the other side as they'd blocked him in his drive.

He was most angry that his daughter had been delayed getting to a party and said the driver should have knocked on his door to ask if they could park there.

Fluffy I don’t know what the firefighter said to her but she dashed out, wet haired and red faced to move her car.

The neighbours all did mean group stare.

Shame they didn't turn the hose on him.

And bill him for the water - and their time.

Surely, if they asked him to put his complaint in writing, explaining that, on receipt, they will promise to guarantee that, should his house ever be ablaze, they will fully respect his decision to deal with the matter quietly and non-inconveniently himself and therefore not attend, he would instantly be shown up for the selfish idiot that he is.

This is the same principle (on a grander scale) as people who object to tradesperson neighbours parking their ugly, tone-lowering vans in the neighbourhood but suddenly change their minds when it's them with the electrical fault or plumbing emergency.

Apparently the lights they use now are a bit of a problem, they have super bright ones so they are easier to see in the day but at night they are blinding. Some emergency workers are finding them too bright and flashy to work by and so have requested they have another setting that is far less bright to use when parked up. Still well visible at night but not too bright to be an issue. Alas the suggestion was turned down because it would increase complexity and also because of H&S reasons.

Seems daft to me, you don't need super bright flashing blue lights in the middle of the night, something more like to the old spinning 40w jobby would be enough.

@DesignStatement my road is used both day and night by ambulances and fire appliances so their lights are flashing all the time. I don't care but the amount of CF drivers who can't see a rather large emergency vehicle behind them is amazing. This means they sometimes have to put on their sirens in the night - now that's annoying.

My 3 year old needed an ambulance once and while paramedics were working on her and getting her strapped in, a woman blasted her horn and shouted out that she needed to get past as it was an emergency! She was going to be late to pick up her children from school. That she could see me weeping over my unconscious child didn’t seem to register. Thankfully the paramedic told her this was an ACTUAL emergency and shut the door on her because my husband was ready to kill her.

A dickhead neighbor of my mum & dad's threatened to move the ambulance that was blocking the road. The crew were inside working on my mum. The son of another neighbor was visiting- he's a police officer and was off duty, his words were " You lay one finger on that emegency vehicle and I will perform a citizen's arrest and believe me this ambulance service WILL prosecute you "
Twat neighbor them mumbled something about needing to get to a neighborhood watch meeting ( I shit you not).
Happily dmum pulled through ( heart attack)

@pinkcalluba probably had to threaten to get the police to charge her with obstruction.

Some people astound me, they aren’t rushing to get to the shops. They are trying to save lives, get trapped people out of burning buildings, cut casualties from RTA’s ffs. Wait and let them do their job, go around them and just bloody leave them to it or move your car if they ask. They had to stop the appliance and get out to ask that’s vital seconds someone is waiting to get help. Seconds matter, I used to Eason near a fire station regularly on my route to work and the amount of idiots who would cut them up and not let them through at junctionsvwas astounding and made my blood absolutely boil. They could be costing people their lives!!!!

Some people are arses. I am sure it would be a different story if they needed the emergency services!