to all the emergency response professionals, what's the worst reaction that a driver has had when you approached with your lights and sirens on?

eekdood · 6 months

Paramedic/Firefighter for 10 years.

Worst I've seen as far as damage: I'm approaching an intersection from a surface street (35mph) to divided highway (60mph) and cross traffic has the green. I've got a trauma patient on board and we're running hot, so the opticom hasn't caught up yet (it's about to stop cross traffic and give me a green light). Fella in a small sedan sees me approaching and locks his brakes at 65mph or so. He slides through his green light, into the intersection, and is rear-ended by a F350 pulling a horse trailer. It was perfectly timed for me and I got the green light just as I hit the intersection and went through cautiously, then continued to the hospital after relaying to my dispatcher that the crash had occurred. Turned our one patient into three.

Most common/annoying: Going to a working fire almost always involves multiple emergency vehicles travelling together. Why is there always at least one moron that sees the first truck pass and then cuts the next vehicle off because they didn't bother to look both ways before pulling back into traffic? That's a death wish right there!

seraphynx · 6 months

the worst one I've experienced in terms of frequency has to be pulling out in front of me (from a street/driveway). I have at least 1000 gallons of water behind me, I cannot stop on a dime if you pull out 50 feet from me to do 30 mph on a highway.

the one that probably pisses me off the most is people using my ability to clear the road to get on my bumper and follow me through traffic.

I don't really have a "worst of the worst" horror story, but I'm kinda glad for that. Knowing some people who saw an emergency worker killed on scene...I don't want their nightmares.

Osiris32 · 6 months

I fight wildfires, so when we are heading to a fire it's usually on remote rural roads. We got a call for a fire that was about 35 miles away, and headed out. About halfway there, we got caught by this massive combine/tractor thing that was trundling down the road at the blazing speed of 15 mph. We couldn't get around him because the road was raised several feet off the surrounding ground. We had the siren on, lights on, and laid on the horn for 20 goddamn minutes, without the guy giving any indication that he knew we were there. Finally we called in to dispatch, and a few minutes later a state trooper came from the opposite direction and got the guy pulled over enough to let us past. We found out later that the guy was nearly deaf as a post, and couldn't see us becase he hadn't washed the tractor in years, and the review mirrors were caked with dirt.

He got a big ticket for failure to yield to an emergency vehicle, and we were 30 minutes late to the call. I still hate that guy.

amateur_acupuncture · 6 months

On a narrow fire road, driving full lights and sirens we came upon 2-3 cross country mountain bikers, slowly coming down the road. We make eye contact, I blare the siren, and two of the three just fall over. They failed to unclip and just lay there for what seemed like eternity, and with some more blaring of the horn and siren they finally get up, move their bikes, and try to chat us up as a we drive past.

tcrex21 · 6 months

I had some bitch flip me off as I was coming up to an intersection lights and sirens. I guess she was pissed that I honked at her. She just kept going like nothing happened.

acidotic · 6 months

Please do not follow us through red lights. Please do not try to race the ambulance. Please do not follow us to see where we are going.

MsKim · 6 months

A car saw our ambulance coming up behind them so they promptly pulled right and crashed into another car.

MSien · 6 months

When I was a rookie my supervisor and I were dispatched to a bar fight. No big deal, happens every Saturday. He flips on the lights and the car ahead of us must have thought that we were after them. They peel away and the passenger leans out and fires two shots at us. I have been out of the academy for three weeks at this point. We pursue and are backed by county. End up chasing them into a corn field and their car just disappears from in front of us. They had driven into a ditch and the passenger fled on foot. The driver was not nearly as quick and was tackled by the deputy. Turns out the vehicle was stolen just a few hours prior and the back seat had been ripped out and the space was converted into a mobile meth lab.

crash_over-ride · 6 months

People, as a rule, are stupid as hell, especially when they see lights in their rear-view mirror. About 1/4 will pull to the right, the rest will try to outrun us, pull to the right, slam on their brakes regardless of them being directly in front of us, or do something else that is ill-advised. The scariest story that comes from my job as a Paramedic is peripheral, but still relevant. One day I got called for a 94 year old woman, possible CVA. Get onscene and, sure enough, she's definitely stroking out. So I get her into the rig, start working her up, and tell my partner to respond emergency to the hospital.

Half-way to the hospital I notice that, as my partner is burning down the road, this lady's mid 90's husband is following the ambulances mere feet from our back bumper. He is weaving through traffic, following us through red lights, and breaking almost every traffic law in the book. From one point of view it's sweet he was willing to endanger countless lives so he could be by his wife's side, on the other hand it's a male in his mid-90's behind the wheel of a car.

Another stupid story from this morning. I've also volunteered as a firefighter for over 9 years. Early this morning my station got dispatched to a vehicle fire. Shortly thereafter I find myself in the back of the engine, sirens blaring, as it races down a 4 lane joined highway in our district. There are cars in both of our lanes as we approach an intersection, and a pickup truck is in the process of turning through the intersection into the oncoming lanes of our road. As soon as he sees the massive fire truck coming towards him, he slams on the brakes and completely blocks the intersection, preventing my engine or anyone else from getting through.

ravenrue · 6 months

Been an EMT for >20 years, volunteer firefighter on and off for years.

I was on a wildfire a few years back in rural New Mexico. I was driving a deuce and a half converted into a wildfire vehicle. They steer like a cow, and can drive over one without feeling a ripple in the cab. I've driven a Cat D-6 line in one of these with ruts so deep I bounced my helmet off the inside of the cab. They're a wet dream for anyone who grew up on Tonka trucks.

So, it's been a long day; I'm hot, dehydrated, hungry- missed lunch and dinner, probably breakfast, too- and it seems every fucking lookie-loo has driven out from the town to see this fire. And it's some goddamned back road, sand all the way, and I'm trying to do a 15-point turn on the south end of this bumblefuck bridge. Meanwhile, the train of lookie-loos is several cars long on either end. And some jackwad has me sandwiched in there to where I can't move. I fucking lost it.

"This is an EMERGENCY VEHICLE! What the FUCK are you DOING there?!" I offered some some other select vocabulary to one specific driver that I have since forgotten. Stuff that should have gotten me fired. (Go ahead- the pay cut from volunteer firefighter to sofa tuna is $0 to $0.)

Eventually we got out of there, and the chief never mentioned it, which I found odd since almost everybody knew everybody out there.

ETA: Another incident nearby, I wasn't on it but it was a big event. Two vehicle collision, both drivers drunk, driving on suspended licenses, with a total of 6 kids in the cars between them- I think a bunch of them were killed, like four of them. Meanwhile, as the accident is being cleaned up, an 18-wheeler comes smashing through the scene, with firefighters and police jumping out of the way, movie-style. For whatever reason, he ignored flares/emergency vehicles.

kosif · 6 months

I used to work in a national park as a Wildland firefighter/EMT. One day we get a call stating that the ambulance is needed at a ranch 30 miles down a bad dirt road, and that the ambulance needed to be there 30 mins ago.

We go hauling ass down this road (going probably 40-50.... I wouldn't have gone over 20 in my own vehicle) with an escourt from the Sheriff's department. The lights and sirens have been on the entire time, and there's absolutely nothing out there, so you could hear us coming for miles. I come around a corner and find a truck pulling a horse trailer and a game warden truck completely blocking the road, pulled alongside each other to chit chat. I sit there for about 30 seconds, honking the horn and hitting the switch that changes the siren (or as I like to refer to it, the "get the fuck out of the way button" and neither one of them moves. Finally, I stick my head out the window and tell them to get the fuck out of my way. They look at me like I've got two heads and just stand there, until the Law Enforcement Ranger riding with me and the Sheriff both threaten to arrest the guy with the horse trailer, and personally find the Game Warden's boss.

loshon · 6 months

Guy was stopped in front of the intersection the vehicle needed to turn into, once he realized it, he gunned it up onto the sidewalk and into a lamp post to avoid hitting the car in front of him, instead of just backing up.

krittel · 6 months

I actually got pulled over on the 405 (Los Angeles) last week. Driving home, hear sirens - look in my rearview mirror to a motorcycle cop directly behind me pointing at me to pull over. I've got 5 lanes to navigate to safely pull over to the right & each time I change lanes I see the same officer behind me pointing at me to pull over.

I get to the shoulder, put it in park - and quickly start thinking what to say (while my adrenaline kicks in....).

Then a car appears and pulls over directly in front of me & the police officer pulls up behind him. Turns out it wasn't me he was pulling over after all. Cop just laughs at me and waves me off to go. Embarrassed but relieved.

Explosive_Oranges · 6 months

[deleted]

technoSurrealist · 6 months

I'm not an EMT or ambulance driver, but I have been yelled at over the speaker to "move to the right, NO, the other right"... I'm sorry guys! There was a lot of traffic in those three lanes on a one-way road and I was confused! Thank you for doing your jobs!

dlh412pt · 6 months

People pulling to the left and then stopping, completely bewildered. I was in our ambulance at a busy urban intersection when another company's ambulance came up behind me with lights and sirens. I pulled to the right in my pretty wide ambulance, and the person in front of me pulled to the left and stopped in the middle of the road. Result: Complete deadlock until the traffic in front of us moved and I was able to go down a side street to give the other ambulance room on the right. Total facepalm.

CMO_Ratchet · 6 months

Some of the stupid stories I've heard? Well my father has been an EMT Firefighter off and on all his life, specifically he's an engineer so he actually does the driving. He gets teased a lot because he isn't the fastest driver but he's never had an accident yet. (In Maryland there are lots of hills and blind corners on narrow roads).

The number one thing people do? Stop dead. Deer in the headlights, especially if there is no easy place for them to go, they don't think of inching up just a little bit to give room for the emergency vehicle to squeeze through.

thing I've ever heard? They were traveling down a long highway just two lanes and a steep sloping drop off of about 15 to either side. Traffic was a stand still because of the accident. The firetruck was having a hell of a time trying stick to the edge without hitting cars, or leaning and tipping. Someone finally decided that this wasn't working and drove his truck straight off the road and down the slope, from what I saw in pictures nearly a dozen vehicles ended up in this trench, not damaged, but some of the smaller cars had to be towed out.

They did save a family of three though, who might not have made it otherwise, especially if it would have been the EMT or Fire truck rolled over off the ledge.

melodymelon · 6 months

I’m not an emergency responder, but this is related and actually happened to me. I was 16 just got my license a few months prior. Was stopped at an intersection and was first in line at the red light. Cross traffic is going about 45 mph. Both lanes are backed up across the street and I see a fire truck with lights on in the back and people moving to their right so it could pass through. The light is still red for our lanes and it is a blind corner to the left of the fire trucks lane due to buildings. The old man prohibiting the fire truck to cross the intersection in his 1976 Buick tank freaks out and hits the gas thinking he can run the red light because of the fire truck behind him, little did he know cross traffic can’t see the fire truck or its lights. I see the inevitable and decide that to prepare for the crash I should throw my car into park and press the breaks as hard as I could. The old man t’s into a ford 250, sideswipes the truck beside me and comes down on top of the hood of my car. With his foot still on the gas he manages to push my car backwards (in park, on the breaks) another 500 feet away. I had never been in accident in my life. I start “ugly crying” and to put the icing on the cake, the reporters from the court house across the street heard everything and came out to take photos for the next days front page of our news paper, with me, crying like a baby. My seat belt didn’t lock and I had the steering wheel imprinted in my chest for days. I still cringe to this day when I see a fire truck. What to do in these situations should really be part of your driving instructions.

Chugabilly · 6 months

Driving an ambulance and riding in fire trucks for 20 years, I have seen all types. The worst are those who pull to the left or pull to the middle of an intersection and then stop, locking up completely without any ability to pull their heads out of their asses and move. I am not sure what part of pull to the right and yield that is so hard to figure out. This has caused me to change my driving habits even to the point of turning off my lights and sirens at some intersections to prevent more of a mess. When I approach an intersection, I always try to stay to the left as to let the sheeple herd to the right. Most of our intersection have Opticoms which give us the green so it has gotten better. I guess the biggest thing to remember is that anyone can get a drivers license, their ability to operate a motor vehicle is a whole other thing.

arabis · 6 months

My brother was once driving home at 11:50 pm as a new driver (had to be off the roads by 12 am) when an ambulance came up behind him. He panicked, went to pull over but jerked the steering wheel too hard, and ended up flipping/rolling his car off the road and down an embankment.

We call now call him Flipper every chance we get.

symmetrically_flawed · 6 months

I was in a work van, in the intersection waiting to turn left. An ambulance approaches with lights and sirens blaring, everyone stops from all directions. It starts to go through and a car comes up on my right, driving at a decent speed and of course they intersect. I witnessed the whole thing; it was kind of like a confetti explosion, except with car parts.

I was pretty pissed at the stupid driver. No one seemed seriously hurt but both vehicles had to be towed.

InterMando5555 · 6 months

I'm not a driver, but this reminds me of perhaps one of the most bizarre incidents I have ever witnessed. I was walking in the Haight in San Francisco, so I was already a bit in the heart of crazy. As I'm walking, this fire engine is just barreling down the road, sirens and horns blaring. As it's coming, I notice this homeless man is in the middle of the road, yelling at the fire engine with his hand outstretched as if to not allow it to pass. By now the fire engine is literally on top of him just honking. And then, without warning, the man pulls down his pants and takes a standing shit. Right there in the middle of the road, blocking a fire truck. Needless to say I went from confusion to completely horror. Then, as if he has done this before, he casually grabs a shirt from his shopping cart, wipes his ass, and keeps going along his way.

TL; DR: Homeless man takes a standing shit in the middle of the road while blocking the path of a fire engine.

spaxcow · 6 months

My dad told me that he once saw a man sitting at a red light with a fire truck blaring behind him. The guy had no room to get to the side of the road, and he refused to go through the red light despite the fact that everyone was stopped to let him through.

BaconIsBetter · 6 months

Rubber-neckers are the worst. Running code down a 4-lane bypass just before rush hour one evening, and out of the corner of my eye I witness a three car accident in the lanes going the opposite direction. Eventually get to make it back to that scene, and find out the driver of the first car to wreck had been looking over his shoulder to watch me going by, and didn't see the stopped traffic in front of him.

kmentropy · 6 months

Family is big with the local Volunteer company. One day the engine came tearing out of the bays (we live in a really rural area so we don't get many calls and everyone gets very excited about the ones we do get) and got up to a good speed, full sirens and lights. Out of the blue, a little piece of shit car pulls out in front of them off of a little side road, causing the engine driver to SLAM on his brakes.

WHO THE HELL PULLS OUT IN FRONT OF A SPEEDING FIRE ENGINE?

Kill-joy · 6 months

People that stop dead in the middle of their lane. Sure, there is a shoulder they could have pulled onto, but no, they just stop right there and freeze.

bonerpotpie · 6 months

Stop immediately in place. We almost got into a wreck at 50 last night because of some genius.

toastycoconut · 6 months

Here's a question: What the hell are you supposed to do if you're first in line, stopped at a fucking railroad crossing on a two lane road? Right lane is full of the cars that already moved over, you're in the left lane, high median (with trees) to your left, and a screaming, horn-blaring ambulance behind you. WTF do you do there? Just sit and listen to the screaming jerk of an ambulance driver?

Because that happened about a week after I got my license, and the train was 23 cars long and in the process of stopping at the shipyard at the next street down. It took just over eight minutes to cross the damn road, and I shot over to the right lane as soon as the bars went up, but I wanted to punch the ambulance driver behind me.

trekbette · 6 months

I was at a bus stop when a police car drove by, lights and sirens blazing. It got stuck behind one car. The officer got on the loud speaker and said "move over, move now." Nothing. Then he said "I am not pulling you over. I just need you to move." Then a space opened the the officer was able to go around the slower car.

notaugieeee · 6 months

One of the worst things I experiece is when we transport someone and their family follows us. I always make it very clear that they need to obey all traffic laws, and they cannot do everything we do. Unfortunately, they disregard this and turn into a huge road hazard by speeding/running lights. Most people barely yield to the rescue, but they're definitely not going to yield to the geo metro in tow.

ReneG8 · 6 months

I know a story from a firefighter friend of mine, who told me, they were approaching a car at a crossway. It was narrow, and they had to get through. The only way was for the car to drive into the crossway. However, standing behind the car, full sirens blazing and lights on full, the car wouldn't move. After a while they got out and to the front of the car, where a woman was crying because she was shocked into almost catatonia. She said she couldn't move the car due to the stress. So her instinct reaction was to sit infront of the wheel and cry...

Story resolved in one of the guys driving the car in the crossway and them continuing to a luckily false alarm.

Kaer · 6 months

This was a rant I posted on facebook a week or so ago. Slightly tidied up from when I posted it.

"some London drivers are bastards. Cruising back from dinner in town on the motorbike, ambo coming the other way with lights & siren on. Both lanes are full with slow moving traffic, my lane is moving slightly quicker. I block my lane and the incoming side street at the lights to give them a clear run. Knocks maybe 2 minutes off their trip. Car behind me gets majorly pissed, starts honking and flashing lights, and after ambo goes and we start moving, does an aggro undertake move and slams on anchors in front of me. Thankfully for him I've matured enough to not knock off his side mirror like I would have done 5 years ago."

But that said, 99% of drivers and great, and part like a wave for the emergency services, just the rare few dickheads. I commute daily in London, and at least 2-3 times a week you'll get an emergency vehicle with blues and twos on, so most drivers are very used to them and pull over. In fact after that rant, I pulled off an almost identical move 2 days later and got the thumbs up from the dude in the passenger seat of the ambo as it went by, with no fuss from other cars.

nomadish · 6 months

Not as a driver, but I was a passenger for this story, in a normal car.

My buddy was driving down the highway, it was pretty empty, when an ambulance comes up from behind. He pulls over and lets the ambulance pass. As the ambulance passes he gets back up to speed. At this point though, we're catching back up to the ambulance.

Long story short, we're stuck behind this ambulance for about 5-6 miles going 50 in a 65, because you just can't pass an ambulance, no matter how slow he's going on the highway. After a few minutes the ambulance pulls off on it's exit, and we speed back up to the speed limit for one of the most surreal 'emergency response' I had seen.

CMO_Ratchet · 6 months

I can tell you that Fire fighters, police and paramedics are the worst at pulling over or maybe the best.

Every time I ride with one of the above (when you family grew up in the station you know a lot of them) and we hear sirens going over, most of the time they don't even slow down. When I ask why they didn't merge right and stop, the answer is always, "They had plenty of room."

momard · 6 months

most fire/EMS drivers are trained to stay left. When going "code 3" it gives you more outs as far as traffic goes, and gives you the ability to see most intersections clearly. Often this involves driving down what turns out to be the middle of the road. I used to work for a major metro fire department, and I drove often. We were responding to a fire at a mobile home park, (the shitty kind) and this lady in her hoopty ride actually swerved toward me while I was hauling ass down the middle of the road to appropriately clear a very busy intersection before proceeding. I was astonished! Obviously she did not under stand the rule of lug nuts. Whoever has more wins.

also, Pulling to the left is a major error when trying to be out of the way for an emergency vehicle.

Move to the right for sirens and lights.

Idiotic_Haymaker · 6 months

I was on a ride along as an EMT student. We had a load and go patient who was having a minor heart attack. An elderly woman pulled out in front of us, when she heard the sirens she immediately slammed on the breaks. Obviously an ambulance cannot stop on a dime so we ended up rear ending her. Long story short, there were now two patients in need of medical care.

VWSpeedRacer · 6 months

Someone passed my Dad and I once when we were responding to the station (lights and sirens.) It was during a snow storm and it just wasn't safe to go faster. Sure enough, we passed him in the ditch a couple minutes later standing next to his car and looking frustrated.

bacon_butter · 6 months

I'm not an emergency response professional, but I live near a hospital and a firefighter station and I hear/see a lot of ambulances and firetrucks rushing places. What pisses me off is I see this more than I feel like I should: pedestrians thinking they are exempt from the sirens because they are not an automobile. There's a crosswalk in front of the hospital entrance and many times you'll see an ambulance with the sirens on waiting for pedestrians to finish crossing (not rushing, just shuffling along slowly) and sometimes pedestrians trying to run across when they can simply wait for the ambulance to pass.

Edit: fun fact- My parents told me that in China firetrucks are allowed collateral damage while rushing to where they need to be, so either you get out of the way or you get crushed because some places are so densely packed that it is more important to put out the fire. However, ambulances don't have the same luxury because you can't justify one life over another.

[deleted] · 6 months

Pulled up on a wreck in the middle of the night and the woman trapped inside the vehicle didn't realize her lower half had been crushed. She came to, panicked and bled out before we could do anything to help.

This is tied with the people who try to take off because they think we're cops.

bigblue1276 · 6 months

[deleted]

[deleted] · 6 months

We were t-boned by a guy who decided the lights-and-sirens on our ambulance didn't mean anything.

tolkaze · 6 months

About 5 years ago in my hometown, there was an ambulance that came up behind several people at a red light. The intersection is very clear, and there is no risk of getting blindsided, so these cars move into the intersection to let the ambulance past. The red light happened to have a camera, and booked 3 people for running the red light. It took media power and public outrage to make the city council reverse the tickets. Pretty sure this made national news in Australia because it was about the same time as lotsof faulty fixed speed cameras.

Tweedle · 6 months

My buddy lived in New Jersey for 2 years. Said people NEVER pull over for Emergency vehicles. Can any one confirm?

xkrysis · 6 months

The worst thing people can do is to pull left instead of right. A close second is just freezing like a deer in headlights.

Its real common sense people. Just merge right as best you can. You don't need to jump up on curbs or run red lights. As emergency vehicles (when authorized and with our lights on) we will break rules of the road if necessary. If your first in line at a red light and have nowhere to go, don't sweat it. I'll drive around in oncoming traffic, or whatever I have to do. Its frustrating when drivers don't think ahead or get out of the way, but I remember from training that its actually pretty hard to hear a siren coming from very far away especially in a nice insulated modern car with the windows up and stereo on. People just don't see me and realize what's happening until the last moment.

Always remember where there is one emergency vehicle there are probably more. They might be coming from another direction through the intersection you are at. If you do something crazy like pull through a red light you just increase your chances of causing an accident with another responding vehicle (or stupid driver).

A quick story, We had a rural 2 lane highway that went up over a pass. Lots of curves with a steep drop off on 1 side. Highway 154 in Santa Barbara, CA. We actually instituted a policy a few years back of NOT running code 3 (lights and sirens) up that highway because we've had too many close calls where people freak out and cut across traffic to try and lemming off the cliff or just wreck right there because they were "freaked out" by the sirens and didn't know what to do.

The moral of the story is, as a first responder your first concern when driving is to drive with 'due regard' for public safety. If that means taking an extra minute to get to the call so be it. Doesn't mean we can't truck it at a buck-ten on an open highway but in all honesty, rarely does a responsible emergency response vehicle speed by much in town or when there are many other cars. You just never know what other drivers will do and basically have to assume they will pull right in front of you at the last minute. Picking your way carefully through is still way faster than being stuck in rush hour traffic.

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