Aug 15
2009

We all know that when driving, if an emergency vehicles comes up either behind or in front of your own car, you should let it pass. If you don’t move out of the way, you are stopping the emergency vehicle from possibly saving a life.

In most cases, you are driving along while the vehicles is coming up behind you and all you have to do is pull over to clear it’s path. However, where do you move if you’re sitting at a red light? This is the problem that car driver Philip Lilley had when he sat waiting at a junction.

The two vehicles in front on Mr Lilley, one to his left and one directly ahead, had already moved into the junction to allow extra room. 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.

With only a short amount of time to make his decision, he moved out slightly over the white line. 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 questionable really whether he did jump the lights because he only moved about a yard over the line, and it was obvious that he had no intention of breaking the law.

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, I have the same opinion as Mr Lilley. If drivers don’t want to get more points on their licence, many will not move out of the way incase they get fined, this could waste time for emergency services which as a result could lose lives.

So if you were in that situation, would you still move out into the junction to let an emergency vehicle through if you knew you were going to get a fine? Mr Lilley has always done so in the past, no anymore though.

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