On a recent warm evening, as I walked through downtown, I noticed all the fire trucks and assorted other vehicles out in front of the fire hall. I decided to check it out. On the other side of the hall, I found the chief conducting a demonstration on car air bags. I stood in the back row as about 20 or 25 volunteer firefighters watched and listened. When the chief had finished his talk he asked for questions. None came.
“I have a question,” I piped up. “And it has nothing to do with air bags. What’re we going to do with people who don’t stop for fire trucks?”
A groan went through the assembly of firefighters. They knew what I was going to say. I explained that the week before I had been driving on the highway just outside town. One of the fire trucks – I think it was a rescue vehicle – was stopped at right angles to the highway. Its emergency red and white lights were clearly flashing. Without much road shoulder along that stretch, I just slowed almost to a stop to wait for instructions from the firefighter crew.
Almost immediately a car raced up behind me until his headlights disappeared below the view in my rearview mirror. He nearly rear-ended me. At the same time he leaned on his horn and began shaking his fist at me. I looked at him. I looked at the flashing lights of the fire truck. And I wondered, “Was this guy behind me totally blind? Or was he just so self-centred that not even an emergency vehicle with more lights flashing than the proverbial Christmas tree had any right to slow him down?”
At any rate, the firefighting crew at the hall all told me they are virtually powerless to do anything when drivers ignore emergency signals like that. Later that evening, I checked the Highway Traffic Act. It says pretty simply, when approaching police, fire or ambulance vehicles that are stopped with red lights flashing, that motorists have to slow down and/or stop. It also says failing to do so can result in a fine of from $400 to $2,000 and three demerit points. I somehow doubt that guy behind me on the highway either cared about the fine or the demerit points. He couldn’t see past his self-importance. I went away from the fire hall sensing the frustration that firefighters must feel regularly when they know far too many drivers completely ignore such rules of the road.
I remembered another instance when I lived in Edmonton. I happened to be driving near one of the downtown hospitals in the city, as an ambulance approached at high speed from the other direction. Lights were flashing, siren was blaring and the driver was weaving in and out of traffic trying to get to the emergency entrance to the hospital. The ambulance driver needed to make a left-hand turn across two lanes of traffic, so I stopped and left plenty of room for him to cross in front of me.
Once again, a guy in a truck roared up behind and hit the horn. (And they wonder what causes road rage.) I was furious that this guy felt his appointment was far more important than the ambulance driver’s, not to mention the patient inside. I wanted to get out of my car and give this guy a piece of my mind. When I realized he was a good deal bigger than I, discretion became the better part of valour. I steamed quietly instead.
All this becomes even more germane next week.
Thousands of other public service vehicles are about to rejoin traffic on our streets. As with ambulances, police and fire vehicles, we need to give them a wide berth too. I’m talking about school buses. And just in case that guy who raced up behind me on Hwy 47 is reading this, the same Highway Traffic Act requires us, when meeting a stopped school bus with overhead red signal-lights flashing, to stop and not proceed until the bus moves or the lights stop flashing. Again, the fine can go to $2,000 and six demerits.
And yet, I’m sure for some people, even if the emergency truck or school bus had billboard-size neon lights, manned machine guns in turrets atop the vehicle and more fireworks than the first of July, they still wouldn’t get it. For some people “red” simply means inconvenience, not stop, look and listen.
