1987 Rover blue light run
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTN5X4JZFjU

This shows how hard Blue light runs can be, even in a Rover.

My son in law was telling me that one day he went from blue light run to blue light run for almost an hour .

My daughter has taken the mick out of him telling him his police car is so small compared to her East Mids Ambulance. And when you see her she is small compared to the ambulance, 5 ft 5ish

Must be so frustrating on blues and twos to get stuck behind a vehicle who's driver is oblivious to the emergency vehicle behind

macafee2

Shotgun out the passenger window might move that ruddy lorry out of the way a bit faster!

Amazing run, and with 5 mins to spare. I bet they were happy with that. I bet that would have been a fun drive in that V8 had the circumstances been different, not that you would ever drive that fast under different circumstances of course.

My wife had collapsed and a ambulance was called for. Because Val had suffered a head injury the ambulance needed to get to Queens hospital in Romford Essex. With blues and two’s off we set. Whilst overtaking some cars on the A12 dual carriageway a Range Rover pulled out in front of us and proceeded to stay in front at a steady 50 mph.

The ambulance driver kept on the siren, but no response from the Range Rover driver. So the ambulance driver swung over to the inside lane and undertook the offending 4x4. It then followed us all the way to the hospital and parked in the ambulance bay. The driver got out and said, “I have phoned the police and you will get arrested for you bad driving. Coming up behind me with all that noise, frightened my kids.”

The crew, and I, ignored him and got Val into A&E. After initial examination she was taken into theatre. As I was waiting outside both the ambulance crew approached me and said the police were outside. We went to look. The Range Rover driver was verbally giving the Police a piece of his mind. Not sure what the Police said to him but he got into his wagon and blasted out of the ambulance bay. The police car followed and stop in on the Rom Valley Road. Where I believe he was arrested but I have no proof. Never heard anymore.

After the operation and a weeks stay in hospital Val was allowed home.

I have heard before of a car blocking an emergency vehicle. Drivers should be banned.

macafee2

Shocking :eek:

Been there done that a few times, remember once picking up a Liver from Darlington and took it to St James's in Leeds.
Had been waiting half the night for the Liver to be removed as the heart and lung team from Freeman hospital had priority, so had to wait until they had finished. By the time I got it and set off it was about 20 to 5 and it had to be with the surgeons in theatre by 6.
Remember doing an indicated 120+ down the A1 at one point in the dedicated V6 Renault Espace transplant vehicle we had that was kept at Leeds Ambulance station. Blue lights all the way fortunately traffic was light at that time of the morning so made really good progress and managed to get there and find the right theatre with about 10 minutes to spare.

Over the years I've done plenty of long distance runs on blue lights Bradford to Nottingham and Leeds to Newcastle for example. We could end up anywhere in the country.

One of the regular but shorter distance runs was from Bradford Royal infirmary to Pinderfields hospital in Wakefield it's about 21 miles the fastest we got there was just over 19 minutes.
3 litre V6 Transit with the Speedo needle resting on the wrong side of the pin on the M62 so goodness knows what speed we were doing :getmecoat:
I can remember one of the officers who was driving a 3.5 SD1 traffic car commented that he never knew Ambulances could go that fast ;)

Later we had 2.8 V6 transits they were really really quick more like decent car performance, handling and acceleration than an Ambulance! They ended up governing them to 88mph all to do with the tyre capabilities so on a quick run you'd continually be bouncing off the governor.

All good fun but it's extremely tiring to drive under those circumstances and at speed. It takes 200% concentration, any lapse and things can go wrong, you have to anticipate everyone else's move and with a patient on board their comfort and safety has to be taken into consideration too.
If you get it right, you can cross cities without stopping though multiple junctions even in heavy traffic.
It's no good running at full tilt up to a traffic queue with blues and sirens you just end up grinding to a halt. Approach at the right speed with the correct vehicle positioning and the traffic parts like magic like the red sea.
It doesn't always go like that when somebody doesn't see or hear you though but that's always going to happen.

Still miss it even after 20 years it's certainly a huge adrenaline rush.

Russ

When I was in the air cadets in Kilmarnock the parade ground doubled as the police "overflow" car park. One day a mechanic turned up looking for the police Sherpa minibus that had been sitting there for a few days. Story was whatever genius was driving this Sherpa minibus tried to pursue a Jaguar and blew the engine :D

My father was in the traffic police in the '60s. Main patrol car was the Austin 110 Westminster. Police spec ones were uprated and good for over 100mph but stopping it must have been "interesting"!