Tuesday, November 28, 2006

The Sirens’ Call

Does anyone read paragraph 194 of the Highway Code?

Emergency vehicles. You should look and listen for ambulances, fire engines, police or other emergency vehicles using flashing blue, red or green lights, headlights or sirens. When one approaches do not panic. Consider the route of the emergency vehicle and take appropriate action to let it pass. If necessary, pull to the side of the road and stop, but do not endanger other road users.

I end up applying this bit of the Highway Code nearly every day as a day without emergency vehicle avoidance training is rare. However, I am amazed at how poorly other road users behave when they see the lights or hear the siren - maybe there are just not enough questions in the standard written test? Maybe people in London now see and hear so many emergency vehicles they are inured to them? Or is it just that they are stupid, have no idea what the code says, panic, and don’t give a damn anyway?

Today I came across more than my fair share of blue lights. A Paramedic in a car passed as I was on Clapham Common South Side approaching Clapham Common Station. It was heading towards a Vespa ET who was off at Stockwell. [I didn’t see the rider when I got there as there was also an ambulance in attendance and they were presumably being attended to in the vehicle. The bike didn’t look badly damaged so hopefully this was fairly minor.] The paramedic did the good old “let’s drive down the wrong side of the road and cut in just before the traffic island” trick and I had moved well over in front of the other vehicles at the lights to let this happen. All so good so far.

When I got to the point outside Waterloo Station exactly where “Kay” was taken out by a pedestrian I heard an ambulance coming up behind me. I slowed right down and pulled to the left. I didn’t stop but made sure that by sitting on the edge of the bus lane there was plenty of room for the ambulance to pass. Imagine my surprise when pulling up alongside me was a black Jaguar! The Ambulance I had so carefully left space for was left with nowhere to go. It was forced to cross the road, risking the lives of the pedestrians who run out in to the road along that stretch, and squeeze past on the opposite side! I think it was only when the ambulance passed that the cager realised why I had slowed down!

This sort of ignorant thoughtless behaviour is so common of all road users. I see cars simply stop and block the road, cars that pull over without looking who is behind them or to their left. I see cars that insist on turning right because the traffic lights say they can even if it means forcing an emergency vehicle to stop. I have seen pedestrians simply walk out in front of ambulances with lights flashing and sirens blaring forcing them to stop or take evasive action. I have seen scooters sitting at junctions blocking ambulances, I have seen sports bike riders trying to overtake ambulances and nearly being taken out as the ambulance swerves to negotiate other traffic.

I remember once seeing a fire engine reversing into the fire station on the Albert Embankment at the end of a shout. It blocked all four lanes as it did so and the cars and bikes waited patiently for it to finish its manoeuvre. A cyclist then comes along, can’t get past so goes up on the pavement, he then proceeds to gesture and shout at the driver of the fire engine clearly inconvenienced by his minor detour. I can tell you, he got a bit of shouting an gesticulation from me as he went past!

About a year ago I was approaching Tooting when I saw the lights of an ambulance in my mirror. I was nearly at the junction where I guessed it would want to turn left to St George’s Hospital. I stopped well short of the junction so the ambulance could round me and turn left. The cars did the same. Then, with the ambulance 100 yards behind, a Spandex Wally who had already cut me up at two previous junctions caught up. He decided to do the old, “I am a cyclist, I am immune from the law, the Angel of Death can’t get me, I will just move out across the junction during the pedestrian cycle and wait the for the light to change [which I won’t see as I will be too far forward]!

Regrettably, when the ambulance passed me on my right and turned left to pass across in front of me and right over the point where the cyclist was, it saw him in time and stopped. Lights flashing and siren blaring, he stopped, and he waited. He waited and he waited. The cyclist just hung about, making no attempt to move out of the way of the ambulance so it could get to the hospital 200 yards away.

Eventually, a car queuing from the left made enough room by moving forward on the junction so the ambulance could pass the cyclist and drive down the other side of the road to get round him. Of course, by this time the lights had changed and the cyclist wanted to move on and was not happy that an emergency vehicle was blocking his path! What a Prat! And they wonder why they are so despised!

Anyway, enough of the past crimes of cyclists. On the way home today I was passing through the Tibbet’s Corner underpass on the A3 when police vehicle appeared in my mirror, lights and siren, it was going like the clappers. I was in the right-hand lane about to overtake the Stig and a car. I wasn’t going to get through in time and had few options. Slowing would only make it more difficult for the police not to hit me. I could pull to the right and hope the police passed between me and the Stig, but I tried that once before on the Albert Embankment, and despite being on an emergency call, the police pulled over to give me a ticking off for pulling not going to the left and probably colliding with a taxi!

Accelerating was not going to work, the bike is a 125 after all and I was doing well above the 40mph speed limit here and by this time we were coming out of the dip of the subway. In the end I gambled on the Stig having the sense to leave a space, and on the car in front just continuing and not trying to brake or pull over or anything stupid. It was a gamble, I didn’t feel I had a truly safe option, which I didn’t like, but fortunately the Stig was able to leave me enough space, and the police sped past into the dark.

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