Emergency Siren Abuse
 

After hearing this a couple of times in the past few days, I was wondering if this happens in your communities.

If you are driving, you stop and veer off to make way for that ambulance with it's siren on.
If you are walking, you may curiously turn your head to see which way the fire truck alarm is coming from.
"That police car sounds like it has somewhere pressing to head off to!" you think, as you sit on the bus.

Well it turns out, that there is no emergency or pressing need. The people in those vehicles just wanted to abuse the "perk" and drive by in traffic with absolute dominance. They don't care that you might have made it on time with a minute to spare, or that your ears could do without the blaring of such decibels, they just wanted to get there faster. You hope this isn't the case and think the best, that is, until you notice that the siren is turned off right after they cross the light, and seconds later, you can hear it going back on for the next intersection.

What do you think of this, if it happens in your communities?

I was driving along with my Dad about a year ago, when we heard a siren, so naturally we pulled over. Along speeds this ambulance, flies past us and turns into the garage ahead of us. They were abusing the siren to get their food faster.

My dad wrote down the registration of the ambulance and later phoned up reporting the incident. Few weeks later he got a letter in the post with an apology saying that the driver had been disciplined accordingly.

I'm sure it's happened again though.

This is a common occurance around here. Especially in my town, man. The cops FLY through town with the sirens on. You see them pull into a parking lot (almost ALWAYS in the parking lot of a Dunkin Donuts, I swear to you), and immediately turn off the lights and siren, get out, and stroll in.

No emergency.

Or sometimes, they put on the lights and sirens just to get out of waiting at a red light with the rest of us.

It aggravates the living hell out of me, and I REALLY WISH I had the chance to say something to one of these assholes.

Meh - I know it happens here, but I really could care less - those who choose to work as police, fire, or paramedics are some of the bravest people I know (second to those in the military).

If they want to get through a red light faster, then let them - what is the extra 30s to you anyways?

I'm a reserve deputy with my local sheriff's office and have been one for about two years now. Around here there isn’t much if any abuse of the squad cars. It seems that most people get confused when they see a squad go through a stop sign or other traffic control device with their lights and sirens only to turn them off after they get through the intersection. I can clear some of this up for you and there are a few reasons why it can happen:

-They might have been en-route to an emergency but then got called off. (This usually happens if there are enough officers on the scene already.)

-They might be trying to catch up to a high-risk car they want to pull over. Generally when you do this you only have your siren on in crowded intersections to avoid a collision and then turn it off once your through so that the high risk car cant hear you coming.

-They might be trying to watch a vehicle to make sure it follows their instructions. For example, two people are involved in a dispute. The police are called and they tell one of the two people to leave. They will then follow this person at a distance to assure that they don't double back and start another confrontation.

-As for the emergency vehicles going through red light just to get to the donut store, that is plain old police corruption and it should be stopped.

What the hell, I've never seen an emergency service abusing it's lights, and I don't know anyone else who has either. That said I don't doubt it happens, I'm sure it's all too tempting to abuse the perk.

Police do that quite often here. They'll just randomly turn on the sirens to get through that red light because they're too busy to wait like the rest of us. I really don't like it. I'm sure there have been some accidents caused by impatient cops doing stuff like that.

I guess it's not a HUGE deal that police or ambulance driver's abuse their sirens a little to get through red lights sometimes. But if it's going to make a bunch of people pull over and create a hassle, then they should just wait like everyone else. =/

More like caused by impatient drivers... you're supposed to pull over and stop when you hear the sirens - or complete your turn, and then pull over and stop (depending on where you are, intersection, etc...).

I don't see it with ambulance and firetrucks, but I do see it with police officers (espically undercover detective cars) occasionally. I don't mind it so much, as it happens so little that it isn't noticable. What really bothers me is when the police blow stop lights and stop signs without lights and sirens on. I nearly got hit by a police car doing 75 through a 35 blowing through intersections. Now that is some scary stuff. Chicago police are some of the most corrupt police in the US.