• Hanrahan@slrpnk.netEnglish
    0·
    7 days ago

    And people complain that climate protestors hold up ambulances, even though they always let emergency vehicles through.

  • Burbour@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    7 days ago

    Of course the ambulance have a reinforced bumper. I think the cars would move out of the way if it means that your gets damaged of you don’t

  • pulsewidth@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    7 days ago

    The german guy is playing it up for views but i do agree that’s pretty bad. In Australia we have similar laws - you must move aside for emergency vehicles, penalty is a fine and demerit points on your license.

    And in practice it is unusual for cars not to move - usually someone elderly/distracted that didn’t see or hear them and probably should get a driving retest. The ambulance will squelch their siren / blast their horns as a reminder for people slow to move, but in my 20 odd years of city driving I have never seen an ambulance stuck like in OPs video - and yes, every major city gets traffic just as heavy as that with lanes just as wide.

    This is a video of an ambulance running through fairly heavy traffic in Sydney that shows how rarely they get blockaded by traffic and how most drivers try to do the right thing. Low res unfortunately, but it is 11 years old. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsplO_2l4hE

  • qevlarr@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    7 days ago

    Park near a fire hydrant or pass a stopped school bus and everybody freaks out, but this is just fine somehow

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    0·
    7 days ago

    I looked it up, and the Rettungsgasse isn’t a thing in Germany on city streets, only on highways (Autobahnen) and roads between settlements (Außerortsstraßen). (TIL it’s a thing in Germany on roads between settlements because here in Austria it is only a thing on highways.)

    There’s still an obligation to move out of the way for emergency vehicles, but there are situations where that simply isn’t possible. There are sometimes dense urban traffic situations similar to the one in the video in Germany too.

    • albert180@piefed.socialDeutsch
      0·
      5 days ago

      That’s not a dense urban situation at all. There was plenty of space on the road in the video. Usually the cars drive a bit on the pedestrian walkway or just really tight to the left/right end and it’s enough. Would also have been plenty sufficient on the road in the video

    • Strider@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      7 days ago

      Living in Germany, I beg to differ.

      In the situation shown every vehicle would have to move somewhere to let the ambulance pass.

      Even if that means sidewalks or crossing red lights. Had to do so myself on occasion.

    • Wanpieserino@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      7 days ago

      You simply move out of the way. Nothing more to it.

      I’ve never seen a siren stuck in traffic in my life here in Belgium

  • AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    7 days ago

    Not to defend our shitty car-centric society but most places in the US aren’t so bad. I would guess that New York in particular presents more challenges for smooth ambulance traffic than almost anywhere else in the country due to its high traffic density and relatively narrow roads and streets. People likely want to move and can’t. Excluding bicycle issues, Americans are pretty good about observing traffic laws and knowing when to give way. (but yes, to a German person, American drivers probably seem like troglodytes)

    • thingAmaBob@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      7 days ago

      Yep. Traffic gets the hell out of the way and stops immediately if there are emergency vehicles trying to get through where I live, even in the city.

    • november@lemmy.vgEnglish
      0·
      7 days ago

      Not to defend our shitty car-centric society but most places in the US aren’t so bad.

      +1. I’ve never seen this problem in Chicago. Most people pull over and stop until the ambulance has passed.

    • JayDee@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      0·
      7 days ago

      That’s fair, but this issue is solved in European cities, via mass transit lowering the number of cars on the road, ambulances being built smaller to fit down narrow passages, and wide bike lanes which ambulances use in emergencies. If anything, NY might be one of the cities most poised to implement all these, if it can just get its shift together.

      • AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        7 days ago

        I live in East Asia, where public transport is given major funding and has high ridership. There is no law requiring people to move their cars for an ambulance and people just don’t bother. Ambulances routinely get stuck in traffic.

      • VerPoilu@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        0·
        7 days ago

        I believe this video is from before the congestion pricing in NYC. I wonder if and how much it has improved since.

        • TheRealKuni@midwest.socialEnglish
          0·
          7 days ago

          I’m in Manhattan this week, and have watched an ambulance slowly move down a street as cars struggled to get out of the way. Even with congestion pricing, there just isn’t much room on the narrow one-way streets.

          • VerPoilu@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            0·
            7 days ago

            I’ve lived in many European cities with narrow-streets. Somehow ambulances don’t struggle too much.

            • TheRealKuni@midwest.socialEnglish
              0·
              7 days ago

              Not sure what to tell you, only reporting what I’ve seen. On the avenues they’re fine, it’s just the east-west streets in midtown I’ve seen them struggle with.

          • VerPoilu@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            0·
            7 days ago

            What are you on about? Congestion pricing reduces congestion, which makes ambulances go faster.

            • Venator@lemmy.nzEnglish
              0·
              7 days ago

              Yeah true, there’s fewer people on the road means fewer will not know how to drive, as people who don’t know how to drive tend to not like driving so might be more motivated to avoid it by the charge. Or it’s just a tax on people who are too poor to be able to turn down a job that requires them to drive…

              The ambulance will still get stuck behind people who don’t know how to drive…

              • lovely_reader@lemmy.worldEnglish
                0·
                3 days ago

                Knowing how to drive doesn’t create a space to move your vehicle into when the road is packed like Tetris. The world’s best drivers can get stuck in these situations, too.

              • VerPoilu@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                0·
                7 days ago

                Congestion pricing impacts rich people more than poor people. You can drive to New York, park outside of the center and take the metro or the bus. Poor people have been doing that for a long time in New York because it’s expensive to park in the city. What jobs in the middle of New York city require you to drive?

      • wischi@programming.devEnglish
        0·
        7 days ago

        Not only that, in many places there are dedicated bus, and taxi (and sometimes tram) lanes which can also be used by emergency services.

  • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    7 days ago

    In my experience this, and running red lights, is more of an American phenomena than one inherent to cars

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    0·
    7 days ago

    New York City already decided it is ok for let people get murdered in plain daylight for no reason, there is an immense, mountain moving amount of wealth in NYC and yet there is destitute homeless everywhere on the streets struggling to survive.

    The fact that wealthy people who live in NYC aren’t ashamed that they live in one of the most powerful cities on earth and yet it still fails to take care of its poorest citizens in an even remotely humane way tells you everything you need to know about NYC.

    This is just an another expression of it.

      • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        0·
        7 days ago

        yes, ok, I edited my post, I am not saying everyone living in NYC is trash, I am not trying to dunk on the people, ughh I did this recently with LA lol, I am talking about the city, not the people living in the city, the city and its politics and the limitations imposed by the rich on what can and can’t happen and how much useless delaying action the rich can deploy to forestall what the majority of a clearly pretty vibrant place desires.

        All this being said, to a degree yes I am insulting NYC for becoming more conservative in a lot of ways over the last couple of years (I will absolutely shit on NYC for all of the neoliberal fearmongering around the subway being full of crime and pouring funding into policing people for not paying $0.73 fares, yes, it is embarrassing and NYC should be embarassed), of course you can’t make any great generalizations about 10 million people, but it is a trend in east coast/northeast culture I have observed and yes I do think NYC typifies it while still wanting to pretend it is the liberal center of the free world.

        shrugs

        I have been to NYC many times, I know a decent amount of people that live there and will always consider it home. There is a reason I don’t visit more lol, besides the fact that I always go broke (even though the food is awesome no doubt).