Lightning McQueen wrote:The Dark Knight wrote:It is legal for ambulances that turn on their lights and sirens to get past medium/heavy traffic? Today on the way home from work there was an ambulance go past me and a large group of cars as we got into the left lane to let it past only for it to turn off its lights and sirens as it finished getting past the traffic.
It is extremely cheeky and I've seen it a few times now including today. I've also seen a police car do it at an intersection where the driver turned on the lights and sirens to do a U-turn and go back the other way.
At a guess I'd say the lights and sirens are on with "emergency" situations, possibly life or death, in the instances you are referring to they may have someone injured that just needs to get to a hospital, perhaps if they are in extreme pain they'd use their own discretion whether they need to use the sirens or not, I wouldn't think they'd be taking the piss out of the traffic, it wouldn't make a huge difference to them, maybe they have to drop someone off in a hurry to attend an accident?
They also tend to turn the sirens/lights off as they get close to the site where they are heading... they certainly have when we have had to call them for issues at our place. You can hear the siren in the distance, then when they get closer they turn it off when they get close...
Though in this case the dinnerback at base may have been getting cold... just joking...