Police appear behind me

50Twuncle

I was driving at 30mph on a winding country lane, in a 30 limit yesterday afternoon, when a Police Transit came tearing up behind me with lights flashing and siren going !!
Try as I might - I was unable to get out of its way - there were no side roads or laybyes to pull in to - so I eventually decided to pull up on to a kerb - via a farm entrance - when I did this - the transit came past me with the police passenger leaning out of the window screaming "at last....." to me.
When I managed to get myself back on to the road - the underside of my car scraped on the kerb - damaging the felt panel under the engine (not that that is really important).

This leads me on to my question ...

Should I have put my foot down and gone over the speed limit - and road conditions ?
Should I have stopped on the lane - potentially leading to a rear end shunt from the transit (he was that close) - and leaving him to overtake me in a dangerous position ?
Or what is the expected actions of a normal driver ?

AndyMc.....

If there really was no place to pass they should have turned the lights off.

50Twuncle

AndyMc..... wrote: »

If there really was no place to pass they should have turned the lights off.

Agreed - I have no idea where they were going - but were in a hurry !
But what should I have done ?

Alter_ego

50Twuncle wrote: »

Agreed - I have no idea where they were going - but were in a hurry !
But what should I have done ?

You should drive within the law and allow them to pass asap.

Nodding_Donkey

You should carry on at normal speed and it is up to them to find a way to overtake. This is also the safest option.

Alter_ego

AndyMc..... wrote: »

If there really was no place to pass they should have turned the lights off.

If they did that they would be unable to exceed the limit when an opportunity to pass came up.

50Twuncle

Alter_ego wrote: »

You should drive within the law and allow them to pass asap.

The lane is a good 4 or 5 miles long from this point - and they could NOT overtake safely for 10 minutes at 30 mph !!

Beenie

I've wondered that myself a few times. We live near a main road which carries all the emergency vehicles to the nearest A&E, plus the police cars with the occasional sirens blaring.

We have two cars - one a 4x4 which will easily mount the curb, but the second has hardly any clearance whatsoever (and we have to be very careful where we drive it for that reason). Mounting a curb would be impossible, so what do we do when the flashing light vehicles need to pass?

I wondered about stopping in the road too, but that seems wrong somehow.

Jackmydad

Assuming it wasn't safe to go over 30mph, then why were they trying to go faster?
It doesn't matter how good or trained you are, if you meet something coming the other way around a blind corner in a lane, and you're going too fast then. . .

tho_2

How wide was this road? I mean If something came the other way would you have to stop in a passing place? If not and it's two lanes wide on any small straight just stick your left indicator on and ease off and let them through?

AndyMc.....

Alter_ego wrote: »

If they did that they would be unable to exceed the limit when an opportunity to pass came up.

Very easy to turn them back on and even without the lights they can exceed the speed limit.