OHTA.ca

Hello,

I was travelling in town at 12:20am (night), a firetruck came from behind me so I got out of its way like I was supposed to (stopped to side and turn signal), all is good. The firetruck passes me and turns left on the intersection (once again all is good). I now start moving again and have a green light at the same intersection (the intersection is about 300 meters ahead and I am going straight through it), I notice that the fire truck which turned left now turned on its sirens. To the right of me there is a hill with a brick wall (which is impossible to see through). I am just about to cross the intersection and a police car comes charging through full speed (a red light for them). Luckily for both of us I stopped to avoid a collision, they also stopped. Obviously they went through first, after they crossed now paranoid that there would be something else I go through with extra, extra caution. I am wondering after the fact if it was the police that turned the sirens on, not the firetruck. But they sounded like firetruck sirens. Police are notorious in this town for go through red lights without any sirens just flashing lights. Even in the middle of the day! And for argument sake if it was their siren, what happens if I was deaf or hard of hearing, I would not have heard it anyways.

Obviously I was very shaken up with this innocent. Luckily no one got hurt. There was absolutely no way of seeing them, I even re-visited the intersection about 15 minutes later, I am not exaggerating. So please no one say "well technically you broke the law", well also I did stop and I was not blocking their path as well, I think I did pretty good considering I could not see them at all, at least until the last 1 second. If I could see thorough walls then yes, I did break the law.

So they did not stop me they just went on their way. I worry very easily, am I going to have a cop show up to my door tomorrow with a fine? Or am I going to get a $500 ticket in the mail? Or is nothing going to happen? Anything I have read on here it seems that they only get tickets on the spot (they will get pulled over). Also one other important thing, the car I was driving was a rental.

Thanks for your time.

The fact they have lights and sirens on does not mean they can fly through red lights. It is their responsibility to make sure their way is safe.

While there are exemptions for emergency vehicles to travel through red lights, they are still required to come to a complete stop before they can safely proceed though the intersection.

Obviously, this happens very rarely and I think most people are satisfied if they just proceed with caution.

I highly doubt there's a ticket waiting for you here.

If there was an accident and you have a green light and an emergency vehicle (even with lights and sirens on) goes thru a red light, the emergency vehicle would be at fault not you.

Just Curious, Who would be at fault here?

Everybody. One for running a red light, one for turn not in safety.

Agreed. Turn not in safety is a bit misunderstood. When you're turning across traffic, it's your responsibility to only do so when it can be done safely. So you're still expected to pick up the slack for other drivers mistakes if you're maneuvering across them. A similar mistake that comes up frequently is when a driver has the right of way, signals to make a right, but continues straight through the intersection. If you make the left in front of the other driver who signaled wrongly, you'd be at fault. Would they still push for conviction with video like this? Who knows. I'd guess there's a possibility they might use a bit of common sense and just drop it.

But this is all getting a bit off topic...

Thank you all for this info, it is much appreciated.