Every jurisdiction I have ever heard of (in the United States, at least) allows emergency vehicles to disregard traffic rules when they can do so safely. This is why you will often see that speeding police/fire/EMS vehicles with lights and sirens activated will still slow down for intersections, and then speed off once they have safely cleared the intersection.
The officer in this case was probably permitted to drive as fast as they were driving, and to drive through a red light, however they had a superseding duty to operate their vehicle safely. It doesn’t matter what kind of an emergency they’re responding to, that doesn’t give them the right to cause harm along the way. If the officer could not know with reasonable certainty that they would not collide with another vehicle (or pedestrian) when going through that intersection, then they shouldn’t have proceeded through the intersection at that speed.
Similarly, police officers are permitted to carry their guns under circumstances where most people would not be allowed to carry a gun. However, if they accidentally shoot an innocent bystander, they are still liable for that shooting. They can’t go waving their gun around just because they’re allowed to have/use guns under specific circumstances. Sounds like an extreme example, but cars can be just as deadly as guns.
I would hazard to say they aren’t allowed (maybe not explicitly, but through gross reckless endangerment) to go through an intersection at 79mph when red, because there is absolutely no situation where the green traffic would have time to even see/hear the sirens without an atypically vast sight range of hundreds of yards.
I agree, I was just trying to be very conservative in my judgement. Realistically, a scenario in which you could be sure that it was safe to go through an intersection at those speeds is going to be very rare, even if you had a green light. There are just too many variables.
Cars are arguably more deadly than guns. The CDC numbers vary slightly year by year, but total vehicular deaths vs. gun related deaths are always on par. Take suicides out, of both kinds, and vehicular death is far more common. And one thing is far more random than the other.
Every jurisdiction I have ever heard of (in the United States, at least) allows emergency vehicles to disregard traffic rules when they can do so safely. This is why you will often see that speeding police/fire/EMS vehicles with lights and sirens activated will still slow down for intersections, and then speed off once they have safely cleared the intersection.
The officer in this case was probably permitted to drive as fast as they were driving, and to drive through a red light, however they had a superseding duty to operate their vehicle safely. It doesn’t matter what kind of an emergency they’re responding to, that doesn’t give them the right to cause harm along the way. If the officer could not know with reasonable certainty that they would not collide with another vehicle (or pedestrian) when going through that intersection, then they shouldn’t have proceeded through the intersection at that speed.
Similarly, police officers are permitted to carry their guns under circumstances where most people would not be allowed to carry a gun. However, if they accidentally shoot an innocent bystander, they are still liable for that shooting. They can’t go waving their gun around just because they’re allowed to have/use guns under specific circumstances. Sounds like an extreme example, but cars can be just as deadly as guns.
I would hazard to say they aren’t allowed (maybe not explicitly, but through gross reckless endangerment) to go through an intersection at 79mph when red, because there is absolutely no situation where the green traffic would have time to even see/hear the sirens without an atypically vast sight range of hundreds of yards.
I agree, I was just trying to be very conservative in my judgement. Realistically, a scenario in which you could be sure that it was safe to go through an intersection at those speeds is going to be very rare, even if you had a green light. There are just too many variables.
Perfectly said! I would add:
Cars are arguably more deadly than guns. The CDC numbers vary slightly year by year, but total vehicular deaths vs. gun related deaths are always on par. Take suicides out, of both kinds, and vehicular death is far more common. And one thing is far more random than the other.