To be pissed off with emergency vehicles driving badly

[Pumpcake]

Three times I've had emergency vehicles being dicks and not during emergencies.

I've had a police van pull out of a parking space in front of me, suddenly, without indicating, no sirens/lights, it was dark.

I've had a fire engine pull away from being double parked (that was an emergency but it was finished now) into the wrong side of the road, head on towards me. No indication, no sirens/lights. I don't know why they'd even need to move out to the wrong side of the road. If it was a normal car I'd have thought they were drunk.

Today I'm pulling into a petrol station, as I do a car inside it is reversing towards me to take another shot at getting closer to the pump. I stop and wait, they take maybe half a minute. During this time an ambulance has pulled up behind me and toots on their horn, fast annoying toots
As if I've decided the entrance to the petrol station is where I'd like to stop. Car in front of me finishes and I can move up to my pump. I have to take the further back one because the one at the front is out of order. Ambulance now honks at me and starts leaning out of the window to complain. My mum then got out of the car and walked up to the ambulance and asked if there was a problem. Driver said move to the first pump. Mum says it's out of order, would you like to use it. Ambulance says 'oh'. Then moved to the other petrol pump that was free.

AIBU to think if you're in charge of the vehicle that's allowed to speed around, through red lights, up the wrong way through traffic, stop anyone else from driving, then you should at least not be reckless and rude in your general driving habits?

Guess I am, was good to vent though

I find taxi drivers to feel they are emergency drivers, which is really annoying
legitimate emergency drivers however aren’t annoying, I think it must be stressful to circumvent heavy traffic

I'm going with a gentle YABU, however, it should be noted that just because they are emergency vehicle drivers does not make them immune from being idiots or nasty - there are bad apples in every barrel.

Devil's advocate though... The police officer may have been distracted by the call they were just on, or something being said over the radio that momentarily distracted them or just they way they had to park gave them a difficult blind spot. Fire engines are a bitch to drive, they are long wheel based, not brilliantly maneouverable and have tonnes of water in the back which gives an awkward load, they may have needed the extra space to pull out into. The Ambulance driver was rude, but it is so easy to get caught up in stressy impatience. They are always on call, even when fuelling and it is super stressful when a job comes in while you are doing this, on top of that, they may have been attempting to go back to base to restock, get a pee and try and grab a drink and some food, all of that goes out the window if a call comes in and sometimes you have to prioritise what has to happen, so stocking up before pee before tea. And that is very stressful, especially if a call comes in just as you walk into the loo. It's not right allowing your stress to overcome your manners, but it's not always easy to stop it. I know this because after 15 years of emergency response I had to step away because it was getting harder and harder to stop it really affecting me and I ended up burning out. Wouldn't go back to it for all the world.

Thanks for the replies. I understand it's a stressful job and I'm very grateful for the services provided. But, there are lots of road users that are stressed or traumatised. However, they don't have authority on the roads and wouldn't get away as lightly with these things.

I think if they're going to have that level of responsibility then frankly they have to be held to a higher standard when in that vehicle. And if they can't, then they need to make the same wise and helpful change of career that you did.

Taxi drivers are of course top priority road users, they're allowed to speed in bus lanes don't you know 😉 worse still is mini cabs in front of me pulling over and then pulling straight back out again when they realise they need to go a bit further and then pulling back in again. Could stress out a sloth watching the back of that. No indication as per, and my crystal ball is never working properly.

I think I'm just spiralling into a moan whirlpool now, I'll give it a rest.

YANBU OP.

Clearly only batshit MN'ers awake right now 😂