Driver Gets Fined For Avoiding An Emergency Vehicle
Posted on: October 13, 2009 by: adminWhen learning to drive, we are taught to let through emergency vehicles when they are getting to a 999 emergency. If you don’t move, you could be stopping that emergency vehicle from saving someones life.
Normally, when an emergency vehicles comes up behind your car, it’s easy enough to avoid as you can simply pull over to clear a gap. However, if you’re sitting at a red light, what do you do? This is the decision driver Philip Lilley had to make when he was waiting at a junction.
The two cars ahead of him, one on the left hand lane and one directly ahead of his car had already moved out into the junction to make way. Now the decision was down to Mr Lilley, either choose to move over the white line into the junction, or just sit there and block the emergency vehicle’s path.
In the very short amount of time he had, Mr Lilley decided to move out over the white line by around a yard to give enough space. However, even though he let the emergency vehicle pass through the lights, Mr Lilley still received 3 points on his licence and a fine for jumping lights. It is actually questionable whether he really jumped the lights because only about a yard of his car was actually over the line and it was clearly apparent that he had no intention of jumping the lights.
The Driving Standards Agency said that rule 219 of the Highway Code is ‘motorists should consider oncoming emergency vehicles but still comply with traffic signs’. However, Mr Lilley thinks the same as I do now. If people are going to be worried about getting fined and having points on their licence, a large number of people won’t move out of the way for these vehicles, this could result in lost lives.
So would you ‘jump the lights’ if you had to so that an emergency vehicle can get through? Mr Lilley has always done so in the past, no anymore though.
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