To expect that an ambulance car should not be travelling at 70 in a 30 zone near a school.

[smartiejake]

Had a very close thing yesterday with an ambulance car that missed our car by a literally a whisker racing round a blind bend in a 30 zone at at least 70mph (we were pulling out of a side road). He was going so fast we didn't hear his sirens till he was in our faces.

One witness to the near miss was so shocked he turned round his car and followed us flashing us down in a side road. He had spotted a dent in the side of our car and wanted to check we knew it was there (it was an old dent). He was outraged at how fast the car had been travelling and pressed us to complain.

Is it really reasonable that an ambulance racing to someone's aid should really risk the lives of other road users?

If he had hit our car my dd and dh would have been toast.

Who knows? And I can see a lot of us have differing opinions.

I think the OP is BU to expect an ambulance to not travel fast in any area to be honest.

You have to be aware. If I can hear a siren I don' t move until I can see where it is coming from.

The OP didn't hear the siren. And speeding round a blind bend is dangerous driving - which is very different to driving as fast as is safely possible.

Tell me, Nabster - how would it have benefitted the patient if the ambulance driver had hit the OP - even if it was only a minor bump?? That would have been a far longer delay than driving a bit more carefully round the corner, wouldn't it!

FFS I have never insinuated that it would have been a benefit to smash into another driver.

Then you shouldn't condone this dangerous driving, imo. The ambulance driver nearly caused an accident through driving too fast.

I never did.
_

For me

how do you know he was going 70?
is it possible to take a blind corner at 70?

could it have felt faster cos you were startled?

Dbro is a paramedic. he has told me before that ambulance drivers (and I suppose it applies tof rie engines as well) have to get to their destination as quickly as possible but as safely as possible -they have to take into account their own and passngers safety, the safety of other road users and pedestrians.. They also rely on the goodwill of other road users, because they (ambulances) have no right of way even in emergency situations. he told me one story of them going down a 2 lane road (with traffic lights at the end)with lights and sirens going with a critical RTA victim int eh back, all the cars along the road were slowing and pulling into teh side allowing space for the ambulance to get through the middle, except for 2 at the very end,w ehre the traffic lights were. he said they sat there, one of them doing finger gestures, and it was 4 way lights so they had a long wait as they ahd missed the chance to get through.

Sorry I'm waffling

Is it in teh USA that all traffic lights change to red when an emergency vehicle is approaching, and that they are legally allowed to go through? or have I imagined that?

ROFL-ing at the 'if it was my child that was injured I would want a trail of bodies lying in the ambulance's wake' brigade.

Wow- I seemed to have started quite a debate here!

Those of you who have seemed surprised that we did not hear the sirens- it wasn't that we heard them and couldn't work out where they were coming from (in those circumstances I would always wait and see) -we simply didn't hear them. Neither did we have our radio on or were talking at the time.

It might well be that the driver of the paramedic car had only just switched them on or that the way the houses are arranged round the bend meant that the sound was somehow reflected in the wrong direnction. Either way none of us heard it or we would obviously not have pulled out. None of us have any hearing impairments BTW.

Another interesting point another poster made was that ambulance drivers know the area and will slow down where they know there are crossings. 100m after the bend where we were nearly hit there is a zebra crossing and he careered over that too.(good job there wasn't a child crossing at the time as he would never have been able to stop.)

Obviously if I or any of my family required an ambulance I would want them to arrive as quickly as possible but I would also hope that they would do it safely and not further delay help by crashing on the way!

Thanks for your opinions ladies.

YANBU in the slightest.

My DH is a paramedic and gets livid when he sees other emergency vechilce drivers risking the lives of others in order to potentially save a life.

In an urban area the guidelines are that they shouldn't go 20 miles above the speed limit. (So in 30 zone top speed should be 50) and that should only be if it is safe to do so.

The should slow down until they have full visibility of where they are going.

Also the majority of call outs aren't life threatening EVEN on red alerts. So the potential means justifying the ends is unlikely anyhow.