lansbury

are you not supposed to do that?

Pulaski

I think so, but I am still after 13 years in the US, baffled as to why? Does the air turbulence caused by my vehicle slow down the emergency vehicle traveling the other way?

MMcD

Because emergency vehicles have the right to (and often do) travel in the oncoming traffic lanes

lansbury

Speaking from the point of view of the police driver, if the oncoming vehicles have pulled to the side and stopped they present less of a danger. Gives the police driver more room to maneuver, if required. Gives the police driver clearer vision down the road.

Bob

Which makes sense....until you have to do it when there is a median divider between directions of a multi-lane road...

Pulaski

And when they do I get out of their way, but merely becoming stationary serves no useful purpose. In fact I have, on several occasions seen drivers been so obsessed with stopping when they have heard a siren that they have blocked the road that the emergency vehicle is trying to travel on!

lansbury

People do that in Oregon, but it isn't law. If there is a divider you don't need to stop.

Mind you if you has seen someone lose a firetruck and it go over the center divider into on coming traffic, you might think there is some sense in stopping and pulling over.

lansbury

I was once going up the M1 from Staples Corner at 125mph in the fast lane on blues and twos, when some idiot in front of me in the fast lane just stopped.

Pulaski

A colleague who lives in a city subdivision told me that a fire truck, a full-size pump truck no less, drove into his subdivision full-tilt a few months ago, and when the driver reached a fork in the road, he lost control and rolled the truck! ..... In the subdivision!

GeoffM

Supposedly in case they hang a left in front of you without warning - ie crossing your path.

But then...

CAdreaming

when a visiting Brit tells you they thought you were American cos you had an American accent

Oh I say - cor blimey - dont fink so my son

SultanOfSwing

That happened to me in a pub back home last year. I was in with a mate and some bird at the end of the night asked me if I was American, then didn't believe me when I said I grew up a mile away from the pub

Pulaski

I was on the phone last week to a business contact in London who I had never met or spoken with before. He greeted me on the phone, I responded with a greeting, probably less than a dozen words, and he immediately recognized my accent as being British though he had no prior reason to even guess that I am British. My accent apparently doesn't change, though I have absorbed some American idiom.

SultanOfSwing

In my head I sound the same but obviously outwardly I don't. Out here, my accent is recognised as 'different' but that could range anwhere from Canadian to Scottish to someone who just thought I was from Wisconsin.