When The Emergency Vehicle Flashing With Siren, You Must:

I read a driving manual’s book a while ago when I was trying to get my driving license. It was more or less like this:

“If an emergency vehicle with lights or siren is approaching your vehicle from any direction, you must pull to the right as close as possible to the curb or roadway edge, and STOP! Remain stopped until certain that all emergency vehicles have passed.”

That’s the law. Failure to comply with this law will result with hatred gazes directed to you from local neighbourhood, and maybe you could go to the law court. One day I remembered how it was to be in my country, third world country.. Indonesia, Asia.

For those who never heard, we have a similar written law about that (except for the STOP part). We must give way to those emergency vehicles; but, we have a completely different way to interprete it when we’re on the road.

This is the scenario for what we mostly do:

1. You’re driving on the highway.
2. You hear a ambulance/police siren.
3. You see a flash signal from your any mirror.
4. Make sure to keep a distance between your front and back cars.
5. Keep the speed steady, and give a little bait to make the ambulance/police passing through the nearest lane from your car.
6. When it’s passing you, give a turn signal to the ambulance/police lane.
7. Once you see a chance, bang the steer and drive yourself there.
8. You’re all set, enjoy the parade :-)

It’s not something odd if you see an emergency vehicle flashing and running in high speed on the highway, with ten to twenty followers. I’ve been in that parade for couple times, and I must admit that it was fun.

So, if you’re crazy enough to drive in Asia (especially in third world countries), here’s the conclusion that you must remember:

1. The meaning of the siren from any emergency vehicles, instead of "Pull Off, and Stop!"
   is rather to "Prepare yourself, buddy!"
2. If you decide to join the parade, prepare yourself like the scenario above.
3. Otherwise, keep steady and stay on your lane, … innocently.
4. Don’t you ever think to pull off and stop, because you will never be able to get back on the road.
5. Don’t worry about getting ticketed; as long as you’re in the group, you’re safe.

Sometimes I wonder when does my country will be as organized as United States;
while in another time, I’m thinking the otherwise.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 at 6:55 pm and is filed under Bloopers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.