Flashing blue lights: should I stop?

getmore4less

The key is (as has been said) try to make sure they know you have seen them and indicate your actions.

A quick flash of the hazards or brake lights, arm up between the seat can all help(allthough unneccessary if indicators will do)

If plenty of time then pulling over to the left is usualy the safer option for all.

Indicator to show which side you intend staying or plan moving to.

Adjust speed to avoid hazards(bollards junctions etc) and try to catch gaps in oncoming traffic.
Sometime speeding up may be the best option, road widens, layby, dropped verge/curb to allow pulling off the road.

harveybobbles

Wonder what would have happened if the Police car in this situation wanted to turn right at the traffic lights...

pitkin2020

Without seeing the road layout its hard to say if you SHOULD have pulled over to the left, others saying you should always pull over to the left is ludicrous as there will many many times when that isn't possible, necessary or will cause more of an obstruction.

This road layout here is a prime example HERE now if like the OP it was late at night and I was the only road user and I was intending to right all you would need to do is indicate (which you should have been anyway) so the emergency services can see which way you are going and they would go on your left in the lane intended for straight on or left, there would be no need to stop. If you were in the right lane and followed the advice on here and pulled over to the left your just going to get in the way especially if you were right on the traffic lights.

Again if it was during the day and the road was busy and you were in the right hand land you still wouldn't pull over to the left you would pull to the right whilst the left hand lane moved as far left as they could to allow the police etc to come up through the middle.

There is no exact answer about whether or not you should pull left or right, stop or continue you have to judge each scenario as it occurs. Too many people upon hearing a siren stop, whilst they have got out of the way of an oncoming siren the traffic behind them have become blocked and are then causing an obstruction. If its safe to do so continue, make your actions clear if you intend to pull over make it clear.

pitkin2020

harveybobbles wrote: »

Wonder what would have happened if the Police car in this situation wanted to turn right at the traffic lights...

he would have still gone on the left side of the car without any issue and turned right in front of them.

harveybobbles

But that could have caused a huge problem if it was a single lane to the right.

They should have just pulled to the left, stopped and let the Copper get past.

Pitkin - in that screen shot from Google - if the OP was turning right and the following police car was intending on turning right, then that could have been messy. Them extra seconds stuck behind the OP could be vital for the 999 call the dibble was going to.

pitkin2020

without seeing the road layout its impossible to give a definite answer.

I had a prime idiot about 2 weeks ago who did pull over to the left in front of me to let the ambulance through. The only problem was we were on a narrow country lane and this car was going to let the ambulance pass...yeah right. The only safest thing to there would be to continue until the road widens, which after giving the horn he realised that as I couldn't get past him nor could the ambulance so he moved forward a few hundred yards into a farm gate, again I could only just get through (being in a LWB sprinter). I squeezed past and left the ambulance behind lol once the road widened which was only 1/2 a mile up the road the ambulance could pass with ease.........

6am

Thank you everybody for your answers.

Please read "lane" everywhere I wrote "line". Sorry for confusion.

I passed my test 2.5 years ago and sometimes make mistakes. I am not a robot only a human. bigjl, you could start rants about falling standards of education in UK now

I try not to repeat mistakes I made. To do that I need to analyse what went wrong. Usualy it is a straightforward case. However I was not sure what I did wrong in this case and how a safe situation developed into much more dangereous one.

In busy traffic it is quite obvious what to do. Everybody starts pulling to the left or to the right to give way to a police car. The driver should actually do something (pull) to give way. The driver in the police car clearly see intentions of other drivers.

However in this situation as far as I was concerned I did everything according to rules. The road was clear for them to pass, I did not block their way, there was nothing for me to do, it was not necessary for me to pull and stop. Tick every box in the highway code rule 219. However it was not possible for me to communicate my intentions to them by doing nothing and I believe that is what caused the problem. The comment about a crystal ball is very helpful.

I am wondering if I had shown right turn indicator (it was slightly early to do) would they undertake me? They would clearly see my intentions then.

As for them turning right as well. It was a possibility. They had enough space to undertake and then turn right. As I said it was early for me to indicate the right turn. Anyway they did not turn to the right.


P.S.
I do not accept that the driver should always pull to the left side by the way. For example I sometimes see that the police car tries to pass through between lanes. In this case drivers in the left lane pull to the left. However drivers in the right lane pull to the right to a line or barrier that separates traffic going in different directions.

George_Michael

bigjl wrote: »

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?

Don't you just love these posters who get all judgmental and then go and get it totally wrong themselves and prove that they have no idea of what a dual carriageway actually is.

Lum

We had the dual carriageway discussion quite recently too, in another thread.

I actually find myself agreeing with Strider on this one, and have done similar myself.

50mph single carriageway, one lane in each direction, pretty much empty my way and full of cars the other way, I'm doing 50 and there's a police Astra on blues approaching from behind at about 70, it had them on before even entering the road so I knew they wern't after me.

There's not really anywhere to go, but I know there is road joining from the left about a mile down the road, so I boot it to about 80, increasing the distance between us, signal left as I aproach the junction, drop the anchors and, seeing that the junction was clear with nothing coming I park in it as if it were a layby and at this point the police Astra has caught up and I get a nice wave from the passenger as they shoot past at 70.

Probably worth pointing out that the car I was in at the time was much more capable than an Astra at handling these sort of manoeuvres otherwise someone is going to jump down my throat for travelling faster than the police on a shout are prepared to do.

bigjl

Well they obviously have very different roads where you live to where I live.

If you read the first post by the OP you will see that the road had two lanes which then turned into three lanes with the third for turning right.

Where exactly have you ever seen a two lane single carraigeway be arranged in this way.

You are aware that a dual carraigeway can be anywhere and only requires a form of divider between the two directions of travel.

And OP I would consider that with your HUGE amount of driving experience or rather HUGE lack of experience you should know that you have to pull to the left to allow any vehicle to pass, since you are not allowed to pass on the left then anybody with an ounce of common sense will realise that when the Highway Code mentioned allowing an Emergency Vehicle to pass then as I have already said the only way to do so is to pull to the left, I think you will find that is the only way to yield to a faster vehicle on any road with more tha one lane.