Michelle Signa may technically have committed a violation by pulling around a Fire Department ambulance that had backed out of a fire station (“Police chief `elated’ by 1st ticket in crackdown, Cops say teacher ignored ambulance,” Metro, Jan 7). But the ambulance driver shares in the blame for this incident for using that vehicle’s emergency lights when it was neither rendering emergency services nor en route to do so.
The emotional atmosphere following the accidental death of firefighter Scott Gillen should not lead to an uncritical attitude toward public-safety workers.
They can and do fail to exercise common sense in these matters.
The failure to yield to police and fire vehicles should be a violation only when those vehicles are using lights, sirens and similar indicators of emergency-related activity, and those vehicles should use those indicators only in connection with actual emergencies.
