Emergency runs considerably more dangerous than normal rides.

A review of the literature regarding the safety of emergency vehicles such as ambulances, fire engines and police cars, indicates that the risks taken by the drivers of these vehicles very often exceed the acceptable safety limits. This safety problem can be attributed among others to the fact that the acoustic and optical signals emitted by these vehicles are often not perceived or judged rightly and timely by other car drivers for adequate reaction to the approaching emergency vehicle. Reports of accidents in which emergency vehicles are involved can be encountered regularly in daily newspapers. The consequence of such an accident is not only the direct physical and material damage to the occupants and vehicles involved, but also the delay in providing urgently needed help elsewhere, resulting in additional victims and damages. Instead of one emergency vehicle three might be tied down as a result of such an accident: the first involved in a crash on its way to an emergency site, the second being send to this crash and the third being dispatched to the site of the original emergency. On behalf of the Royal Dutch Touring Club ANWB the SWOV carried out research regarding the road safety problem of emergency vehicles. In this article the following subjects are dealt with: legislation, rules and jurisprudence; extent and characteristics of the problem, accident rate of emergency runs compared to normal rides for several countries; possibilities of countering the problem. (Author/publisher