I fought the law....

GothicStirling

You are expected to get out of the way for ANY emergency vehicles under ANY circumstances. If you where well aware of the vehicle (which you should be) why didn't you use the hard shoulder to let the police car past?

Fat_Walt

GothicStirling wrote: »

You are expected to get out of the way for ANY emergency vehicles under ANY circumstances. If you where well aware of the vehicle (which you should be) why didn't you use the hard shoulder to let the police car past?

Under any circumstances? Well that's not true.

It was a police van.

How do you get onto the hardshoulder of a slip road from lane 2 if lane one is blocked?

As you know it's an offence to drive onto the hardshoulder, if it is to be used in an emergency best leave it for the emergency services.

JP08

GothicStirling wrote: »

You are expected to get out of the way for ANY emergency vehicles under ANY circumstances. If you where well aware of the vehicle (which you should be) why didn't you use the hard shoulder to let the police car past?

Because he was in the right hand lane of the slip road as per his original post, maybe ...

And no, not in any circumstances.

Rule 219 : 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 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.

In this case : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/advice/why-you-could-be-fined-for-letting-an-emergency-vehicle-past/ it looks like Glasgow council only backed down after the pressure of publicity.

It applies to creeping past the white line at a red traffic light to let the fire engine behind you through. The rule is quite clear and are Musts not Shoulds

Rule 175

You MUST stop behind the white ‘Stop’ line across your side of the road unless the light is green. If the amber light appears you may go on only if you have already crossed the stop line or are so close to it that to stop might cause a collision.



Rule 176

You MUST NOT move forward over the white line when the red light is showing. Only go forward when the traffic lights are green if there is room for you to clear the junction safely or you are taking up a position to turn right. If the traffic lights are not working, treat the situation as you would an unmarked junction and proceed with great care.



So Rule 216 says obey rules 175 and 176. And block that fire engine behind you !


Personally if there was space between the white line and the crossing traffic, I'd make room and argue the toss like the lady in the Telegraph article above.

anotheruser

On a similar note, I wonder why personal headphones haven't been banned in cars.
Going by the volume of many headphones, their car could be honking in an un-controlled manner and the owner wouldn't know. Surely sound is as important as vision in a vehicle?

I was at a red light once and saw blues behind me.
There was nobody at the junction, so I honked my horn and moved into the junction to pull over. All was safe, all was nicely done.


OP: What happened to the car in front of you? Did they get out of the way?
Plus, people shout abuse at the smallest of things - I'm sure when the police van sped by they understood.

AdrianC

anotheruser wrote: »

On a similar note, I wonder why personal headphones haven't been banned in cars.

Because driving without due care and attention has always been illegal.

Strider590

JP08 wrote: »

Because he was in the right hand lane of the slip road as per his original post, maybe ...

And no, not in any circumstances.

Rule 219 : 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 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.

In this case : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/advice/why-you-could-be-fined-for-letting-an-emergency-vehicle-past/ it looks like Glasgow council only backed down after the pressure of publicity.

It applies to creeping past the white line at a red traffic light to let the fire engine behind you through. The rule is quite clear and are Musts not Shoulds

Rule 175

You MUST stop behind the white ‘Stop’ line across your side of the road unless the light is green. If the amber light appears you may go on only if you have already crossed the stop line or are so close to it that to stop might cause a collision.



Rule 176

You MUST NOT move forward over the white line when the red light is showing. Only go forward when the traffic lights are green if there is room for you to clear the junction safely or you are taking up a position to turn right. If the traffic lights are not working, treat the situation as you would an unmarked junction and proceed with great care.



So Rule 216 says obey rules 175 and 176. And block that fire engine behind you !


Personally if there was space between the white line and the crossing traffic, I'd make room and argue the toss like the lady in the Telegraph article above.

I need to just stress that the highway code is a best practice guide, it's not the word of law, the law is the Road Traffic Act.
What this means is that if your seem driving contrary to the HWC, you could be charged with careless/dangerous driving, but those are down to the opinion of a qualified Police officer. The reason behind this is that sometimes driving by the HWC could cause issues, for example when an accident/obstruction requires a driver to cross a solid white line, you can just imagine someone sitting there refusing to move because it's against the HWC.

Fat_Walt

Strider590 wrote: »

I need to just stress that the highway code is a best practice guide, it's not the word of law, the law is the Road Traffic Act.
What this means is that if your seem driving contrary to the HWC, you could be charged with careless/dangerous driving, but those are down to the opinion of a qualified Police officer. The reason behind this is that sometimes driving by the HWC could cause issues, for example when an accident/obstruction requires a driver to cross a solid white line, you can just imagine someone sitting there refusing to move because it's against the HWC.

However just to add to that, when the Highway Code says must not it is law and the link to the relevant law is at the bottom of the rule.

It doesn't need the opinion of a police officer for someone to be convicted of careless or dangerous driving.

GothicStirling

OP, this wasn't you was it?

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/middle-lane-hogger-calls-999-11850023

NBLondon

One vaguely similar incident comes to mind... Many, many years ago I was eastbound on the M62 through roadworks where Lanes 2 and 3 were closed and just Lane 1 running at 50mph. I caught a glimpse of blue lights in the mirror and saw a sequence of cars pull into the hard shoulder and a police car squeezing by. {No, I don't know why they didn't just whiz up the hard shoulder...) So when it's my turn I do the same - the jam sandwich comes alongside and the car in front of me (memory is suggesting a dung-coloured Morris Marina for some reason...) takes no notice for about 2 minutes despite blue lights, flashing headlights and sirens on his back bumper. Either they were insistent on "I can't drive on the hard shoulder and he'll have to wait for the end of the roadworks"or they were completely oblivious to their surroundings.

DoaM

I agree - why didn't plod use the hard shoulder? That's exactly what it's for.