Safe Speed Forums

Date: January 30 2006


By Kirsten Ehrlich Davies

IT'S outrageous. A high-spirited teenager pulls a hilarious holiday prank involving a stranger's car, only to find the police chasing him down as if he's a criminal. He panics, and unwittingly exceeds the accepted speed limit for a stolen vehicle (roughly double what the sign says, faster when it's wet). It's all very well for more experienced drivers to point out he should have pulled over when he saw the police car behind him. The poor kid doesn't have his licence yet. How can he be expected to know the rules?

And so the inevitable happens. He crashes, injuring himself and the schoolgirl accomplice beside him. I blame the police. Had they not been hunting down the boy the accident would not have happened.

I support the public demand to stop these dangerous police chases. And while we're at it, I propose that all emergency vehicles be stripped of their elitist driving privileges.

I've had it with these emergency drivers expecting me to stop meekly at a green light simply to watch them shoot blithely through the red. I'm tired of their arrogant disregard for the accepted protocol of driving on the left. And what's with the sirens? I wouldn't object if they indicated there was an ambulance or fire engine immediately behind me. But sirens are pitched so that all drivers within a four-block radius are nervously aware that an emergency vehicle might be bearing down from any direction.

It is fire engines that anger me the most. With all the debate about four-wheel-drive vehicles, has anybody stopped to ask why huge, cumbersome fire engines are still allowed on our roads? They are a serious threat to everyone, zipping madly through red lights and crowding cars into the kerb as they swerve on to the wrong side of the road at dangerously erratic speeds. Who decided fire engines should be allowed to speed? This is Australia. Everyone knows that once a fire starts it will not stop any time soon. It will still be there when the firefighters arrive.

And don't get me started on ambulances. Not only do they demand the same high-handed privileges as fire engines and police cars, they also hog all the best parking spots at hospitals. Never mind that ambulance passengers have already enjoyed a fast-paced journey, complete with paramedical attention.

They are the first ones through the door, while the honest taxpayers who have driven themselves to the hospital suffer the added indignity of limping all the way to the emergency ward from the hospital car park.

It has to stop. Emergency vehicles should no longer be allowed to abuse the road rules, using the hollow excuse of "helping the community". Someone has to make a stand.

Perhaps the next time a young teenager is injured in a stolen vehicle after a police chase his parents should demonstrate their disgust by insisting the ambulance taking him to hospital travels no faster than 40kmh.

Occasional contributor Kirsten Ehrlich Davies died this morning from a heart attack. Paramedics failed to reach her on time due to new government restrictions on the use of emergency vehicles which Ms. Davies campaigned vehemently for the introduction of.

Ms. Davies retired from public life after her family were killed in a house fire 6 months previously. This event occurred the day after fire tenders were withdrawn from service under the same rules.

Would be poetic justice.......!