Guys, please don’t do what I saw yesterday and have seen at work a few times recently.
On my way to a shout at work and going through heavy traffic and a few bikes decide to tailgate us and use us to get through the traffic as well.
Once an emergency vehicle goes through a gap opened up by it’s blues and twos then car drivers will usually move back into their normal position and it will cause an accident which as we all know, bike riders will lose badly. If what we’d being going to yesterday had been cancelled en route then yes, I would have had them aside and words of advice if not more.
Wasn’t there some police research recently that said unmarked police hyper bikes were 25% more likely to be involved in accidents now? Upping your chance of a crash by a 25% (a lot higher a percent if untrain no) is good enough reason not to emulate police speed biking me-thinks.
Just to emphasise what Baz is saying, even following a marked police car with blues and two’s in another marked car with blues and two’s, you still have a seriously high risk of the traffic parting for the vehicle in front and then pulling straight back in front of you! This is why the vehicles following use a different two tone siren from the one in front, in order to highlight the fact that there are more emergency vehicles coming through.
So, as Baz said, you’re not a marked emergency vehicle and have way too much to lose when the vehicles in front start moving back into your path! Use some common sense people!
or…how about he was late for breakfast and his MET999 was getting cold!
But reiterating what BusaBaz mentioned, if there is a collision behind and they see it they have to stop and it’s a shed load of paperwork and a resource removed from the incident they were going to.
One thing I have thought about a few times, for example a bike filtering along the Euston/Marylebone road, an ambulance comes along, bike pulls over to let them past, then carries on filtering and comes up behind the ambulance which is going slower than the bike.
Should the bike start filtering slower? Or by using a gap maybe between traffic on the inside/middle lane, go past the ambulance who is using the outside lane?
+1 There’s nothing car drivers hate more than motorcycling opportunists tailgating emergency vehicles. And unfortunately we all get tarred by that brush as people do tend to generalise about motorcylists.
Hands up to having done it once on the north circular…thinking it through - all it needed was for a car to decide to do the same - to swing in right behind the ambulance - and there’s every chance I am getting taken out.
anyone who follows a emergency vehicle on a call thru traffic is stupid and wreckless and is asking to be involved in an acccident and deserve to be stuck on for their stupidity
Still about mate and missing you lot (in a blokey non soppy way of course !!)
Apart from blatting back and forward to work and one ride to Windsor the other week with the G/F on the back, I haven’t been riding for pleasure for ages and no hope either over the next few months … bloody Olympics !!
Hope everyone is all good.
Very good advice and should be stuck to. I’ve filtered on past vehicles passed by emergency services on a shout with a very wary eye on them, hanging way back from the passing vehicle. Best to give them space to sort themselves out and then normal filtering service resumes.
