Flashing blue lights: should I stop?

bigjl

One other point you say you were on a single carraigway road with two lanes?

Do you mean a dual carraigeway in that both lanes go in a single direction?

Are you sure you sat a driving test?

Poppy9

6am wrote: »

I reread Highway Code
It does not say that I should move to the left. It says that I should let them pass which I did however they did not like the way I did it.

reread Highway Code

Quote:
219
Emergency and Incident Support vehicles. You should look and listen for ambulances, fire engines, police, doctors or other emergency vehicles using flashing blue, red or green lights and sirens or flashing headlights, or Highways Agency Traffic Officer and Incident Support vehicles using flashing amber lights. When one approaches do not panic. Consider the route of such a vehicle and take appropriate action to let it pass, while complying with all traffic signs. If necessary, pull to the side of the road and stop, but try to avoid stopping before the brow of a hill, a bend or narrow section of road. Do not endanger yourself, other road users or pedestrians and avoid mounting the kerb. Do not brake harshly on approach to a junction or roundabout, as a following vehicle may not have the same view as you.

The highway code tells you to pull to the side of the road. If on your driving test you are told to pulll to side of the road, which side would you go to - the left!

pmm1981

One other point you say you were on a single carraigway road with two lanes?

Do you mean a dual carraigeway in that both lanes go in a single direction?

Are you sure you sat a driving test?

bigjl - A single carriageway road can have 2 lanes of traffic in each direction, there is still only 1 carriageway ie not split by barriers.

Definition for dual carriageway:
divided highway: a highway divided down the middle by a barrier that separates traffic going in different directions; "in Britain they call a divided highway a dual carriageway".

Main point is you should have pulled over to the left and slowed down so as to move back into the right hand lane.
The extract from the highway code above states this as highlighted above.
You showed poor judgement and could have endangered other road users by moving into the lane for oncoming vehicles (if it was a solid white line you broke the law and could have had a £100 fine + 3 points).

The police car will have sounded its siren to alert you to their presence, if they had gone for a straight undertake you could have been startled and panicked thus hitting their vehicle as most drivers will move left to allow a vehicle to pass.

spiro

The emergency services will always advise that whatever you do you do it clearly i.e. if you are going to pull over to let them pass INDICATE, they dont have a crystal ball.

Also if I am in the overtaking lane on a motorway/dual carriageway and this happens, at the same time as pulling over I always 'flash' the driver in front in case he has not seen the blue lights, you'll be surprised at the number of times that this results in that driver also pulling over straight away.

cyclonebri1

Don't actually see what the argument is here, the only neccessity is to safely get out of the way and not impeed the progress of the emergency vehicle.

If the police car was coming up behind at high speed with the blues on the op was probably unaware if was going straight on or going right, moving to the right lane and allowing the car to pass seems perfectly logical to me especially given the conditions of traffic at that time.

Op I think you set the wrong tone for this topic by suggesting you swerved into the right hand lane that you were actully going to take anyway??

andygb

I think there is a lot to take into consideration here - where was the OP's vehicle when the emergency vehicle was spotted? If it was already in the right hand lane, with right indicator flashing, then a move to the left lane would/could be dangerous. If the OP was in the left or middle lane, saw the blues and twos, and then decided to "go for it" and head for the right hand lane, then this would have been a wrong course of action.
If it was me, then as a mirror user, I would pull over to the left and slow/stop ASAP.
I have only been caught out once, for a couple of seconds - Middle of the day, nice and bright, single carriageway road, traffic ahead of me starting to move slowly as a result of the lights changing to green. The traffic on the other side of the road, suddenly stopped/started to pull over, and a police car shot past me from behind, with just its lights flashing and no siren. To this day, I do not know why they were not using a siren in broad daylight?

wba31

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

Don't actually see what the argument is here, the only neccessity is to safely get out of the way and not impeed the progress of the emergency vehicle.

If the police car was coming up behind at high speed with the blues on the op was probably unaware if was going straight on or going right, moving to the right lane and allowing the car to pass seems perfectly logical to me especially given the conditions of traffic at that time.

Op I think you set the wrong tone for this topic by suggesting you swerved into the right hand lane that you were actully going to take anyway??

But the OP didnt safely get out the way, they swerved into the lane for traffic going in the opposite direction. Some may argue that the OP may have seen nothing was coming, but the OP has mentioned a junction up ahead with a right turn, as the OP was focusing on the police car, they may have not seen someone coming along the road from the left, and turning left, and could have had a head on collision. The police car, that clearly has somewhere better to be, now has to deal with this incident?

I dont understand why simply pulling over to the left is not the logical straightforward thing to do? My mate is a copper and his biggest gripe is people that panic and delay him, as people have said the emergency drivers just want to keep moving, so either pull left and let them go down the middle of the road or outside lane, or keep going until you can pull up out the way. He says it's the wise drivers that also indicate so the emergency driver knows exactly their intentions.

victor2

Years ago, a relative was driving in a fairly high performance car (for the day anyway) in very heavy but fast moving traffic on a motorway, in the outside lane. A police car with its blue lights on came up behind him. The traffic wasn't letting him in so he stuck to 70. Through a loud hailer on the police car came the words "Renault, put your foot down!" He did and as soon as there was a gap, they said "Now pull over." As they passed, they said thank you and to this day he tells the story of when the police told him to break the speed limit!

alanrowell

6am wrote: »

I know it was stupid to swerve to the right on the line which goes in opposite direction but I could not help myself to avoid this mistake.

You could have helped yourself - you could have pulled into the left hand lane and slowed down to allow the emergency vehicle to pass. This is what they would have expected you to do and what most people would have done so why didn't you do it?

photome

OP why didnt you indicate your intention the the police car so he knew exactly what you were going to do.

You could have stayed exactly where you were, put your hazard lights on and he would have known that you had seen him approaching, then he could have gone either side of you (as the road was empty and you didnt know that he might have been turning right).

Of course you could have done the best thing and indicated left and pulled over to the left but I guess you know that now