Is it illegal to overtake emergency vehicles which are on blues and twos if they are going slower than you on a by-pass or motorway etc.
The reason I ask is because when I was out today, there was an ambulance on lights in the left hand lane going slower than other traffic (I think he was going slower for patient comfort, if he was carrying a patient).

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I wouldn't have said so, but I've never done it.

with Orinoco. As long as you don't obstruct them in the process, I don't think an offence would be committed.

No unless it is due to a rolling roadblock

As OBP says, You can as long as the vehicle is confined to a single lane. Some ambulances with spinal cases could be doing as little as 10Mph on a motorway, under police, or recently HATO escort.

My understanding however is that for patient comfort, this is often done in lane 2 or 3 due to the "traintracks" in the surface caused by LGVs, so I have no idea how you would stand if you undertook the vehicles as oppposed to overtook them!

OBP is probably best to advise on this.

There is nothing in the highway code that says you cannot undertake another vehicle, however if you are sitting in lane two on the motorway being over and undertaken then that would be slightly unerving for anyone so I don't know.

Don't see a problem with it.

Slightly off topic but it has just occured to me after reading your post.....whilst HATO patrols will be able to escort a slow moving ambulance, they wont be able to escort a fast moving ambulance as they wont be able to claim the speed exemption.

For what its worth I don't think it would be an illegal act. It would probably help things actually because if everything started piling up behind the ambulance it would cause more problems than it would solve [traffic congestion, danger of smash up]. Although if the ambulance is going slower than general traffic, then as long as it's not a lot slower (10mph slower for example) then maybe it would be more sensible to not have warning equipment on which would avoid all confusion fom other motorists.

GOOD POINT!

Thats correct Bazza, it is also not that likely that we will undertake slow moving escort of ambulances, but it is a job that the local police forces could ask us to do to save tying their resources up.

if anything or anyone is to escort a fast moving ambulance , i as a Emergency care Health Professional who gets involved in the clinical side of emergency transfers would want one thing, and one thing only - class 1 rattus rattus motorcyclus anything else is just too risky

I've escorted Ambulances with a car and handed over to the Met who were also in a car.