There are no exemptions for member of the public to pass a red light.

Absolutely accurate as always Dwight but the court may well accept a Special Reasons argument if a driver could show they were facilitating the passage of an emergency vehicle.

Special Reasons is not a defence but a mitigation and would mean that the court would convict (as an offence had been committed) but would impose no penalty in the form of points nor fine.

So the outcome is very similar to an acquittal - but legal costs cannot be recovered.

I would say a bit of common sense has to be used here.If a emergency service vehicle is behind me sirens going and i have to move over even if it means going through a red light without me endangering somebody else i will do so.

I would think twice if I had nine points on my licence and getting three more would result in my losing it! My job and home would be at risk!

Edited by Zippy123 on 09/10/2010 at 13:13

Good point Lucy,i would think if a ambulance was behind me and a i was in front of a red light and it means me moving over to let the ambulance go through i would do so.What kind of community we live in if we block a amulance or any emercency vehicle the mind boggles.I noticed this year driving in France a ambulance was behind us on a emergency call they did't mess about you move and rightly so.

Bathtub tom and zippy,god forbid if one of your family was in the ambulance or needed the fire brigade or the police.And you both sit tight? Even with nine points i would think about that later like Lucy is saying there are special circumstances.

Well that's the point isn't it! Thatcher some time ago is reported as saying that "there is no such thing as society". We live in a time where the govt. believes that it is fair to remove a benefit from a lower paid family than a higher paid family because of a nominal tax banding. If they don't care, why should we!

If the authorities cared about society they would place police at traffic black spots and not cameras.

From all the traffic light cameras that I know, only one seems to be there as a safety feature. The road in question is down a steep hill and there is an offset junction that curves in from the right and where merging traffic is hard to see.

Nearly all the others that I see are to control traffic flow on a main roads with clear junctions and designed, I think to keep traffic flowing in rush hour by stopping slow moving traffic logging up the lights.

Now the truth is that I have moved out of the way for the emergency services. I have even had my wing mirror removed by a passing ambulance and had to fix it at my expense (a few hundred pounds) because there was no where to go in a busy high street (and no I could not mount the kerb it was too high). I didn't chase the ambulance or force it to stop which I could have, but I do get fed up of people who suggest that we would want the waves to part for a member of our family. Of course we would try our best but the reality is that moving through a red light puts the driver in danger and just because there is a blue light behind you shouldn't force you to put yourself in danger or hardship and the current situation means that you potentially puts you in a situation where your job, home, family and life could be put at risk.

I dont understand your attitude Zippy like Ben says you could have rang the ambulance service and they would have sorted it out.They are vehicles on a emergency call not for the fun of it.I have moved there is always space.