Moving Over for Emergency Vehicles: It's Your Legal Responsibility

Emergency vehicles have places to be and live to save. It’s your civic duty (and legal responsibility) to GET OUT THE WAY.

Emergency Vehicles You Should Move Over For:

• Police cars
• Fire trucks
• Ambulances
• Other rescue vehicles

Don’t get in the way of a puppy pursuit.

Basically, whenever you hear sirens and see flashing lights (they could be white, blue, amber, or red), it’s time to figure out where the emergency vehicle is coming from and how you can make way for it to pass. Increase your odds of noticing the signs by making sure you’re visually scanning the road around you frequently and keeping your music at a reasonable volume. Reducing distractions is going to up your driving skills in all sorts of ways.

If the emergency vehicle is behind you or approaching the same intersection as you from a different street, you will need to pull over and/or stop. But don’t just slam on the brakes and come to a halt right where you are. That puts you at risk of getting rear-ended by the car behind you. The safest method is to slow down, activate your right turn signal, carefully move over to the right, and come to a stop. Watch out for other drivers who are also trying to get out of the way, and make some room for them if necessary.

Remain stopped until the emergency vehicle has passed. Then turn on your left turn signal, check your mirrors, and carefully pull back into your traffic lane. Don’t try to follow right behind the emergency vehicle to get through traffic faster or see where it’s going. That’s just nosy.

What if you pull over for a police car and it stops right behind you? Well, Aceable Defensive Driving can help you with that too. Drive safe!