This will be very useful as a teaching aid – and I have even embedded it into my website in my Tutorial Pages. (not live get – but will be in the next few days).

Thanks again – a great tool.

However, I believe it would have been/would be good to clarify the situation wrt to bus lanes. Questions surrounding whether or not to enter a bus lane when trying to assist an EV abound on the Internet.

In your video you state that people may proceed through traffic lights if instructed by a police officer, but do not address the same point for bus lanes.

There is confusing official advice about bus lanes in publication (e.g. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/redroutes/963.aspx – which says to enter bus lanes to assist)and as a video purporting to offer definitive advice on the subject I believe you need to be 100% clear on this. I realise that you may need to cover different legal positions in different parts of the country and therefore use the lowest common denominator but feel that this is not really good enough.

I note also that the highway code (141) permits any vehicle to stop in a bus lane unless otherwise prohibited (i.e. it’s not the bus lane that the’s issue, it would be coincidental no-stopping restrictions).

It would be useful to know if EVs are trained to use bus lanes or not (I’ve heard both). If they are not, then surely the law needs to be corrected if required to allow members of the public to use bus lanes when assisting an EV. I could add “where safe so to do” but this applies to everything of course.

Regards
Stuart B.

I must agree with the earlier comment that there urgently needs to be a national policy – NATIONAL not regional, POLICY not guideline – about this, communicated to all drivers, both of blue-light vehicles and “civilians”. Whether this consists of instructing – INSTRUCTING, not advising – all blue-light drivers to not get cross with drivers obeying the current Highway Code or a change in the Highway Code is not my decision to make, but I would be more than cross if a relative of mine died because everyone obeyed the existing Highway Code when by behaving differently, but safely, a life could have been saved.

I have been the lead car at a set of red lights on a couple of occasions. In both instances I have crossed the white line by one car’s length to enable the driver behind to move over by pulling forward. This in turn has passed up the line, enabling the emergency vehicle to get to the front. I consider this safe to do in most instances as there is normally a bit of ‘dead ground’ that wouldn’t be of issue to traffic comming from other directions.

As regards bus lanes, perhaps the emergency vehicle should be using the bus lane?
Whilst I can understand the legal position with regard to red lights and bus lanes and the advice the video is bound to give. I feel there would be a public outcry if it could be shown that someone had died because all the drivers followed the rules and no one would enter a bus lane. Could you imagine the Daily Mail’s take on that? I’d humbly suggest that one has to be practical about these things.

It’s my own personal observation that the majority of drivers will simply stop without regard for position. This stops all the cars behind them and often snookers the emergency vehicle further back up the line. I feel it’s a shame more emphasis couldn’t be placed on the importance to keep rolling, as forward motion gives the traffic options with regard to position. However, I’d also have to recognise this is only a short video and not a complete driving course. And must therefore, be simplifed to get the most milage out of it, and also be of some benefit to the greatest number of possible.