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Not to defend our shitty car-centric society but most places in the US aren’t so bad. I would guess that New York in particular presents more challenges for smooth ambulance traffic than almost anywhere else in the country due to its high traffic density and relatively narrow roads and streets. People likely want to move and can’t. Excluding bicycle issues, Americans are pretty good about observing traffic laws and knowing when to give way. (but yes, to a German person, American drivers probably seem like troglodytes)
Yep. Traffic gets the hell out of the way and stops immediately if there are emergency vehicles trying to get through where I live, even in the city.
Audio: Whoever needed it, they’re dead.
Subtitle: Whoever needed it, they’re okay.For anyone wondering, the Rettungsgasse (“rescue aisle”) is something we do on longer stretches of road whenever congestion happens, to allow ambulances to pass through as quickly as possible. Everyone on the right side of the road keeps to the right and everyone on the left keeps to the left, forming a roughly ambulance-sized gap in the middle. On multi-lane roads, it’s formed to the right of the left-most lane.
There’s also laws for it. You can get fined, if you hold up the ambulance, because you failed to form the Rettungsgasse, or if you have the audacity to drive down the Rettungsgasse to try to skip a traffic jam.
It’s not really a thing in cities like shown in the video, as we’d typically try to drive into side roads or onto parking spaces or the sidewalk to make room for the ambulance. The laws don’t apply there either.
This is the law in both America and Canada, the issue is either just assholes deciding they are more important than the ambulance ,or a lack of places to move.
And also we just let people die instead of enforcing the rules.
Fuck drivers
Most of province 20 over the limit seems fine and you got a really mean cop if you got a ticket for it, even though we know speed, tailgating, agressive passing all increases the risk for a collision that tax payers ultimately pay for.
The law in my part of the U.S. specifically says to pull to the right to let an ambulance pass, but as far as I know, it doesn’t give you the right to drive on the sidewalk (so as you say, nothing to account for a lack of places to move).
What our German friend there is describing is a convention to inform drivers whether they should pull to the right or to the left depending on lane position, which is really smart and which I’ve never heard of. If there is such a system here, it needs a marketing campaign, because it only works if everyone knows about it and clearly we’re not there yet.
The ambulance should havet the right to trash the cars of they don’t move out of the way. That would maybe get people to move.
While that sounds nice, it also risks the ambulance being rendered immobile, or the equipment/patients being thrown around.
Maybe not ramming them at full speed. But just enough to put a dent in their car.
Okay. Now we have a damaged ambulance and a damaged car, but the ambulance still can’t pass. What’s the advantage?
Put a giant cowcatcher in front of it
NYC needs to ban cars
No cars on the island at least
I looked it up, and the Rettungsgasse isn’t a thing in Germany on city streets, only on highways (Autobahnen) and roads between settlements (Außerortsstraßen). (TIL it’s a thing in Germany on roads between settlements because here in Austria it is only a thing on highways.)
There’s still an obligation to move out of the way for emergency vehicles, but there are situations where that simply isn’t possible. There are sometimes dense urban traffic situations similar to the one in the video in Germany too.
You simply move out of the way. Nothing more to it.
I’ve never seen a siren stuck in traffic in my life here in Belgium
Neither have I in America.
Same in Sweden.
Living in Germany, I beg to differ.
In the situation shown every vehicle would have to move somewhere to let the ambulance pass.
Even if that means sidewalks or crossing red lights. Had to do so myself on occasion.
Removed by mod
Ah, so it is because of bikes! /s
Easy Douggie!!
And people complain that climate protestors hold up ambulances, even though they always let emergency vehicles through.
The german guy is playing it up for views but i do agree that’s pretty bad. In Australia we have similar laws - you must move aside for emergency vehicles, penalty is a fine and demerit points on your license.
And in practice it is unusual for cars not to move - usually someone elderly/distracted that didn’t see or hear them and probably should get a driving retest. The ambulance will squelch their siren / blast their horns as a reminder for people slow to move, but in my 20 odd years of city driving I have never seen an ambulance stuck like in OPs video - and yes, every major city gets traffic just as heavy as that with lanes just as wide.
This is a video of an ambulance running through fairly heavy traffic in Sydney that shows how rarely they get blockaded by traffic and how most drivers try to do the right thing. Low res unfortunately, but it is 11 years old. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsplO_2l4hE
Now I want a kinky bicycle. I just have a straight one.
Park near a fire hydrant or pass a stopped school bus and everybody freaks out, but this is just fine somehow
In NYC people block hydrants all the fucking time. Only time it’s enforced is when there’s a fire, by FDNY
Never send paramedics to do a German cyclist’s job!
In my experience this, and running red lights, is more of an American phenomena than one inherent to cars
alt source? catbox won’t load for me and many others.
This is because Americans are garbage people
Wowowow
Of course the ambulance have a reinforced bumper. I think the cars would move out of the way if it means that your gets damaged of you don’t
