Handling Emergency Vehicles

I remember once being on a bus in central London when 5 Police cars came up from behind at speed and with their lights and sirens on. The bus was stuck in traffic within some roadworks and there was no room for the Police to get past.

The bus driver remained perfectly calm.

In spite of what I've been told in my own training, the lights and sirens on all of the Police cars stayed on as they waited in the traffic and the first two positioned themselves behind us in the line of sight for the bus driver in a very "Get out of the way! Get out of the way!" manner with the other's further back in the queue separated from those first ones by other queuing cars.

But still my driver remained calm.

It was almost as though he didn't know that the Police were there. We were held by Red traffic lights and coned into lanes that were only a few inches clear of the bus on each side with London rush hour traffic ahead of us - probably about 8 or 10 other vehicles in front before we got to the lights.

We were stuck, but it was obvious the Police were in a hurry at the worst possible time in the day for London's traffic.

The lights changed, the traffic moved and as we came out of the roadworks, the road expanded to 4 lanes. The driver signaled his intention to move to the left as he approached the exit of the roadworks and the Police responded by positioning to the right of the lane, inches from the cones, absolutely itching to get past.

And that's exactly what happened when exited the bottle neck and got back out into some space. The bus moved left (and accelerated normally), the Police moved right and easily out paced us on the open road and because our driver left the scene rather than stopping to let the Police past, the flow of traffic followed behind us and the other Police cars were "released" one by one to follow their colleauges.

That bus driver remains one of the best examples of how you deal with emergency services that I've ever seen on the road.

When you are approached by a vehicle responding to an emergency on the road:

• Remain calm
• Do what you can do to help them through (but don't stress if you can't do anything)
• Use signals to communicate your plans to the emergency driver
• It helps everyone if you offer SAFE opportunities to them to get past
• It helps everyone if you consider yourself to be part of a team assisting the Police
• Don't break any rules in the Highway Code - you must drive legally at all times and face prosecution if you don't!

It's worth bearing in mind that that emergency drivers:

• Have formal exemptions to break three rules in the Highway Code
• Speed limits
• Red lights and stop signs
• Keep left or right bollards
• Have widespread public support in breaking other rules in the Highway Code
• Are trained to deal with traffic - in a nutshell, they have two questions in mind at all times:
• Is there space?
• Are all other road users aware of my presence?
• Are well trained in car control skills
• Are well trained in the driving skills of observation and anticipation
• DON'T have to use blue lights and sirens in emergency response if they feel it's better not to
• SHOULD turn off their lights at sirens when in queues at Red traffic lights (to avoid provoking a dangerous reaction from other road users) and restart them when lights turn to Green
• MUST drive SAFELY at all times, regardless of the circumstances surrounding their journey

So it's a question of teamwork! We can help emergency vehicles by being aware of our surroundings, creating space and trying to be as predictable as possible.

Examples of people failing driving tests for poor response to Emergency response vehicles include:

• Drivers entering bus lanes
• Mounting the pavement
• Drivers stopping in dangerous places expecting the ER vehicle to over take
• Drivers stopping in other inappropriate places and causing a blockage

That bus driver WOULD NOT have failed his driving test because there was nothing he could do.

Stay safe!

Nick Heath Driver Training is located in Rode Heath on the Staffordshire / Cheshire border and provides driving training services to those looking to either improve their driving or learn from scratch. In addition to media work, we conduct Taxi Driver Assessments for local authorities and offer Advanced Driver Training and Testing, Motorway Training and Fuel Efficient Driver Training alongside refresher courses and learner driving lessons. We are ORDIT registered to provide Driving Instructor Training and are listed on the DVSA's register of Fleet Trainers so we can help you with your business needs.

More details are available on our website www.nickheathdrivertraining.org.uk

Advanced Driving... Reading White Lines

A few weeks ago, I did a series of articles looking at commentary driving and if you gave that a go, then you'll know that it's all about making your thoughts conscious and actively looking to read the situation around you.

In today's notes, I want to look at the subject of white lines, and specifically, the white lines down the middle of the road that define overtaking conditions.

Advanced drivers who are giving a commentary will often comment on the white lines that they can see in the road up ahead, particularly as they navigate their way around bends and over the crest of hills etc.

They'll often plan for overtaking manoeuvres based on this information and as a result they'll say something like this "the overtaking restrictions lift just around this bend, so we might get the chance to overtake this tractor here" and go on to select gears and move into overtaking positions before or as they take the bend.

I was doing this myself recently, when it occurred to me just how often the information presented by the white lines is wrong - it's got to be more than half the time!

For those who aren't sure:

• Double white lines down the middle of the road mean overtaking is disallowed in at least one direction - if the white line on your side is solid, then you can't overtake. You ARE allowed to overtake bikes, works vehicles travelling less than 10mph (road sweepers etc) and parked cars but these lines are used where overtaking is considered to be dangerous

• Single white lines mean that overtaking is allowed in both directions and there are two versions - longer lines and smaller gaps mean that it is "hazardous", smaller lines and longer gaps mean "non-hazardous"

• Arrows telling people to move back to the left hand side of the road are a sign that a change in the road markings is coming ahead (sometimes you can see that if you look far enough, but other times it may be around a slight bend etc) - this would usually mean that they are becoming more restrictive / hazardous

Examples of inaccurate placement of the lines include:

• A road near me where you come around a right hand bend with a 1/3 mile straight bit of road ahead of you, but double white lines are present for around 250 meters before the line on your side is broken and you are allowed to overtake

• The road I was on last weekend was quite bendy but road markings were often "overtaking is non-hazardous" in places where there was less than 100 meters clear visibility of the road ahead due to upcoming bends or hill crests

• Very bendy sections of road where clear visibility is down to less than 50 meters with "hazardous" overtaking road markings

• "Non-hazardous" road markings past entrances to businesses, side roads or fields

I've always thought it was a bit strange that road markings attempt to define "hazardous" or "non-hazardous" overtaking conditions when so much depends on visibility in different road, traffic and weather conditions as well as what it is that you're actually overtaking.

I wonder how many crashes or near misses are caused every day by drivers taking these road markings at face value and overtaking when they can't see sufficiently far enough ahead? A driver suddenly confronted by an oncoming vehicle on their side of the road as they come over the crest of a hill will not be left thinking afterwards that that driver is a highly skilled, advanced driver will they - they'll more than likely think they're stupid!

There's nothing wrong with planning ahead of course, and I think it's worth mentioning that overtaking doesn't just mean that we're overtaking other large vehicles - overtaking things like slow moving bikes requires a shorter stretch of road, particularly if you're driving a high powered car but I find the road markings alone to be a very inaccurate indicator of the safety of an overtaking manoeuvre.

Nick Heath Driver Training is located in Rode Heath on the Staffordshire / Cheshire border and provides driving training services to those looking to either improve their driving or learn from scratch. In addition to media work, we conduct Taxi Driver Assessments for local authorities and offer Advanced Driver Training and Testing, Motorway Training and Fuel Efficient Driver Training alongside refresher courses and learner driving lessons. We are ORDIT registered to provide Driving Instructor Training and are listed on the DVSA's register of Fleet Trainers so we can help you with your business needs.

More details are available on our website www.nickheathdrivertraining.org.uk

The first week back after lock-down & a new style of blog

This is the first of a new set of blog posts that I intend to read like a diary piece. The intention is to do them weekly and see what lessons can be drawn from each week.

I'm starting them at the end of the first full week of work that we've been able to do as an industry since the government lifted lock-down restrictions on us.

This week, everyone has worn a mask, everyone has avoided paying cash, everyone has agreed to have their temperature taken, nobody has cancelled their training session and nobody has displayed any concerns about the virus.

The only problem with those masks is that, although they're not tight, they wear grooves into the tops of your ears after about 8 to 10 hours of wearing them, leaving your ears feeling bruised and looking dented - it's certainly a relief to take them off at the end of the day and I feel the pain of all those people in care work and at the NHS etc who've been wearing them for ages!

But of course, the masks are necessary.

As ADI's, we are sitting 18 inches away from somebody else in a well ventilated, yet otherwise enclosed space and either of us may have the virus and not know it.

In everything I've read up about the virus in the last few months, the one question that remained unanswered related to the number of people who contract it without displaying symptoms but more and more reports and studies are now concluding that the answer to that question is that it is around 80%. In other words, if you deliberately infected a group of 100 people, then 80 of them would be expected to display no symptoms. If it's true, that's a horrendous figure because we all rely on people displaying symptoms in order to recognise that they have the virus, stay in and protect the rest of us!

So the masks are essential PPE for anyone working in close proximity to others and it's disappointing when you see an ADI not wearing them, or hear them saying that "I've told the clients that I'll wear one if they want me to" (which is an incredibly unfair position to put a teenager in - can you imagine ANY teenager insisting that you wear a mask??)

If people like us, in high risk situations don't wear them, then what happened in Leicester WILL happen again. Local lock-downs are a reality where there are local outbreaks and no matter how self conscious or uncool people feel about wearing masks, we ALL lose out if that happens.

It's worth saying that the majority of ADI's I've seen this week ARE wearing PPE though, and that's a good thing.

It's also worth considering if you're learning to drive without masks that they are mandatory for both people in the car when you take your driving test. DVSA have already released that information to say that the examiners will be wearing them and expect that the clients also wear them - if you're not used to it when you take your test, you're going to be at a disadvantage in the same way that you would be if you were driving a new car on test day.

Other things I've been doing in the car this week is cleaning it before and after every driver!

That's interesting when the client comes and stands in the middle of the road waiting for you to get out of the car whilst you're trying to wipe it down - you start power cleaning!! 

In order to be effective, the cleaning must cover all contact surfaces with soap, as the virus has a fatty coating that is destroyed in soap leaving it fatally wounded so not only does every surface need to be touched by a wipe, that surface needs to be coated with a fresh, soapy wipe and left wet to the touch for a couple of minutes whilst the soap does it's job.

This is again something that examiners will be doing before they enter the car for a driving test.

If you are doing it yourself, then anti-bacterial wipes from the supermarket are fine and don't damage the interior, but you must be careful not to buy ones that contain bleach - because that WILL harm the interior!

The windows have also been open this week and the Heko Wind Deflectors I purchased to allow the windows to be open in all weathers have been put to their test with all the rain we've had.

In spite of it getting pretty heavy from time to time this week, I've been pleased to see that very little rain has entered the car (any that has, has come in through the very back of the rear windows where the deflectors don't cover). Ventilation in the cabin, particularly on fast roads, has been fantastic and it hasn't been too noisey. These wind deflectors are available easily by searching on line (I got mine through EBay) - mine cost around £40 for the set and look great on the car.

So that's it for this week. Driving instruction requires an ADI to do a lot of things in their head when they're working. They watch the road, plan how they'd drive along it themselves if they were driving, plan escape routes in case anything goes wrong AND watch the client to see if their actions match what the ADI would do or are otherwise appropriate for the road conditions IN ADDITION to actually talking to the client about their driving! Mentally, a driving lesson is a busy time for an ADI and you develop a kind of fitness if you do it regularly, so you can cope. It's obvious that after 14 weeks off, I've lost some of that mental fitness and it's been a tiring week... the day off is very welcome and there are more days off next week to enjoy!

Whatever you're doing this weekend, enjoy it!

Nick Heath Driver Training is located in Rode Heath on the Staffordshire / Cheshire border and provides driving training services to those looking to either improve their driving or learn from scratch. In addition to media work, we conduct Taxi Driver Assessments for local authorities and offer Advanced Driver Training and Testing, Motorway Training and Fuel Efficient Driver Training alongside refresher courses and learner driving lessons. We are ORDIT registered to provide Driving Instructor Training and are listed on the DVSA's register of Fleet Trainers so we can help you with your business needs.

More details are available on our website www.nickheathdrivertraining.org.uk