People heading east or west should always pull over to the right when an emergency vehicle approaches with its lights flashing.
Do you know what you are supposed to do when you are driving and see an emergency vehicle approaching with its lights on? Are you sure you know?
What’s the first thing you should do? According to Cook County Sheriff Mark Falk, “Don’t panic.” People do it all the time, he said, often slamming on their brakes.
Falk said drivers should always be on the lookout for emergency vehicles. “When you’re driving down the road,” he said, “you need to occasionally…every few seconds…glance in your rearview mirror.” If the car ahead of you pulls over and you don’t see an emergency vehicle approaching from the opposite direction, Falk said, you should look in your rearview mirror to see if one is approaching from behind. Drivers of emergency vehicles coming up on trafficfrom behind often see drivers pass cars that had seen the emergency vehicle before they did.
If you see an emergency vehicle approaching, Falk said, slowly pull over and come to a complete stop. Thisapplies whether the emergency vehicle is coming up from behind or coming toward you in the other lane.
If you are driving on a road with two lanes on your side, give law enforcement vehicles that are pulled over to the right a full lane of traffic between your vehicle and theirs.
What if you are intending to turn left off the road and see an emergency vehicle coming toward you from quite a distance away? Do not turn in front of it, Falk said. Move to the side of the road and stop until it has passed.
Always pull over to the right, Falk said. Emergency vehicles will always pass on the left.
Falk urges drivers not to create a traffic hazard by either driving too slowly or stopping at the scene of an emergency. Don’t park too close to an emergency scene, he said, and don’t clog the area by driving by to look. If you are at the scene of an emergency, leave plenty of room at the site for emergency workers to operate, Falk said.
By following the procedures Falk described, emergency workers can avoid distraction and having to deal with traffic control. Both police and firefighters have been killed because of traffic, Falk said.
Emergency responders now wear reflective vests at incident scenes. “We’re trying to be more visible,” he said.
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