The irrisponsible nature of code 3 driving

[bcemr]

Last night my wife and I were on our way to dinner in Cerritos, California when a fire engine lit up about 3 lights behind us. We were at a red light in the left of 3 through lanes, so I hit my hazards and sat tight.

The engine came up behind us blaring the angry horn then moved into the left turn lane beside us, continuing to hit its horn, before passing us and then filling the entirely empty 2 right lanes beside us which they could have just used to pass us. Instead they tried to force us into a red intersection and across 3 lanes to the right shoulder, just so they could use my lane to go 10 feet and then move to the right 2 lanes as the intersection ahead of us in the left lane was full and stopped at a red left turn about 15 cars deep.

My wife was incredibly frustrated with me claiming I should have moved over for the engine regardless of my experience and common sense - whereas in my experience I thought they were in the wrong. I would never have driven like that. I would have simply gone around my car to the right in the empty lanes and continued on my way.

My training has taught me something completely contrary to what their actions were and it made me wonder - what do you guys think? Would you have forced me into a dangerous intersection when 3/4 lanes were empty? Would you have blasted your horns at me and gave me angry glares?

*irresponsible

 

[Jim37F]

Generally speaking, the rule of thumb is never pass on the right if you can avoid it, because other motorists (i.e. you) are supposed to pull over to the right and yield to the emergency vehicle, and it happens all the time, people stay in the left lane until the last possible second before suddenly cutting over to the right.

However that rule of thumb assumes that you're actually driving down the road, not stopped at the red light, which is the big exception. If you're already stopped and pulling over means you'd have to pull into the crosswalk/across the limit lune, stay put, just like you did (Note that as an emergency vehicle driver I have no earthly idea what you mean by putting your 4 ways on, it does nothing to telegraph your intentions to me since I've personally seen drivers who've put on their hazards and then stayed put, cut to the right, and even cut into the left lane).

Yes, if there was an open lane to your left, the engine should have gone straight into it first. But there's lots of factors not described that can affect the situation, such as intersection shape and size, traffic, any construction or medians or how wide was that lane, time of day and visibility...also other factors that you really can't know without being on board, perhaps the call was at some development where the best access is on a completely different street than the street address, maybe dispatch switched them to a different call and they need to figure out if they need to turn left or right or go straight at your intersection..are they even honking at you? If there were any traffic that even looked like it was approaching the intersection they could have simply been honking at everyone in general to clear the intersection.

And yes, it's also entirely possible the engineer was doing the wrong thing and attempting to get you to drive through the red. I've seen it before and I hate it, because that is really unsafe. Every time I've had a new guy with me, I've always tried to train them to never do that. So good job on not driving through a red light.

 

[johnrsemt]

If they passed you on the right and you pulled over to the right at the last minute and hit them, then it is their fault.
So passing you on the left is the correct thing for them to do.
Question to you, if they were 3 lights back and you had no traffic around you, that was more than enough time to back up a little, and pull into a right lane. And it is hard to believe that in that 3 light section of road your light didn't change for you to go.
And like Jim said, what does turning your emergency flashers on say or tell the driver you are going to do? Turn Right AND Left?

 

[bcemr]

The emergency vehicle expectations are clearly VERY different in Canada than the US based on these 2 replies alone.
Backing up and pulling across all those lanes seems ridiculous to me as a driver of a civilian vehicle and a licensed emergency vehicle driver of 5 years.

I've got some education to catch up on.

 

[Aprz]

I disagree with the backing up your vehicle idea. That puts you at risk of backing into a vehicle behind you if you don't see one that is there already (eg you are driving a larger vehicle) or if another vehicle is approaching you and think you are stopped.

I will say that I think what other motorists think and what I think are two different things. They'll go into the lane that I was going to, stop right in front of me, go into the left turn lane so they can make a turn out of my way, inch up into the light (very bad in my opinion). I avoid passing to the right, but I still do it with caution and only when I think it is safe to do. If I am completely blocked, I either turn off all of my lights and wait for the light to turn green, or I sit far behind the rest of traffic with my lights on so they (hopefully) don't feel forced into traffic. Everyone kind of have their own style. My preference is less lights and sirens, lol. Ironically, other motorists will get mad too when I shut down. I've had a couple of people start taking pictures or recording videos of me while giving me an angry look when I shut down at an intersection or shut down on the freeway. I can only imagine them saying on Youtube "This guy just drove lights and sirens through this intersection, entered the freeway, and it turned it off. Abuse of power!" even though I am actually still "code 3" to a call or was cancelled. [edit] Point is that there is a lot of miscommunication on the road. It is expected. They think they are helping me, but they actually slowed me down. They think I want them to do something, but the actually perfect early. Those fire guys may have thought nothing about your driving, but you and your wife took it the wrong way. That is a possibility. [/edit]

Not to put down the fire department, but I think the department tends to drive a lot more aggressively than ambulances. I somewhat think that it is because of the size of their vehicle. Maybe they feel safer from an accident? Maybe it is for convenience? Like when I see an ambulance go code 3 through an intersection, they usually somewhat stop at minimum. I've seen plenty of fire departments just roll through the light without stopping. Ambulances tend to avoid opposing traffic, but I see the fire department do it at all the time. I don't know. I feel like fire engines tend to be a lot more aggressive with code 3 driving.

Edit: I'd like to add just do what you think is most safe for you and the public. It's not safe for you and others if you run a red light. Not only will you get hit, but the other driver that hits you will also probably suffer in some way. I feel like 99% of calls we respond to totally do not warrant code 3 driving. The patients can wait. Very few calls benefit from us getting there quickly. I feel like a couple of minute difference won't change outcome. That's the attitude I tend to have when I drive to a call. Of course, I became a (fake) paramedic so hopefully won't be driving as much now, lol.

 

[gotbeerz001]

While passing on the right has more risk involved than passing on the left, it is not a "wrong" thing to do if it is the safest and most efficient way to navigate past an obstacle. People like to get caught up in "always" and "never" which only shows a lack of understanding of the concepts involved. If passing on the right is appropriate, just have your awareness up and communicate your request for that lane as early as possible.

 

[Ewok Jerky]

I try to avoid passing on the right. I will take oncoming at an I tersection to go left around stopped traffic as the OP mentioned. I am very concerned about passing on the right only to have the motorist do the same.

People are stupid.

Code 3 is an art not a science. Hard to say if the responding crew had a better iption., but I don't think what they did was wrong.

I also don't think the OP did anything wrong either, when stopped at intersection with a respk ding vehicle behind you, the safest thing to do, usually, is stay put.

 

[wtferick]

Cerritos does get pretty bad with traffic. Don't take it into offense. Aslong as no one got in an accident