I left work at five this evening, prepared for a long, slow, stressful commute, which Edmonton delivered in spades. After about a half hour I'd managed to make it from 105 street to 124 street, cars all around me, most of them wanting to make the same desperate turn at Stony Plain Road I hoped to take.
Suddenly, sirens crowed behind me. A fire engine was driving against the oncoming traffic, its lights forcing cars to give way. Serendipitiously, I happened to be parked at one of the few gaps in the long windrows, meaning that if I wanted to, I could stealthily pull in behind the fire engine and travel rapidly north on 124 street in its wake, bypassing traffic with none the wiser and perhaps shaving a half hour from my commute.
Of course that would be a ridiculously irresponsible thing to do, not to mention selfish, so I resisted temptation. I wonder what sort of fine that kind of driving would get you?
2 comments:
Following an emergency vehicle in the course of its duty is a violation of Section 115 of your Highway Traffic Act. According to Alberta Legal Services, you'd expect to accrue +6 demerits and likely a fine of around $400.
It's a very bad thing to do! Emergency vehicles stop and turn unexpectedly, and may travel in tandem. Even so, the penalties for following emergency vehicles in the States are much more severe, and there are police cruisers who go out of their way to catch offenders.
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