"Give us room!"
Thousands of emergency trips are made every year by rescue services, fire departments and police. And it is not uncommon for them to find themselves in situations where it is not possible to move forward smoothly despite the special signal. This is often due to the fact that motorists do not know exactly how to react. A campaign has been launched to raise awareness of the problem and highlight the correct way to behave.
Imagine: An emergency vehicle is approaching from behind with its special signal switched on. Actually, you should drive to the side. But how? There is a red light in front of you, and no room to the left or right. Running the red light may result in a hefty fine. And now?
Such or similar scenes occur frequently and lead to emergency vehicles being blocked on their alarm drive. In the worst case, delicate situations can arise in which car drivers endanger themselves or others through careless and nervous actions.
Schutz & Rettung Zürich, the Zurich and Winterthur city police forces and the Winterthur rescue service are now jointly launching an awareness campaign aimed at all motorists. Starting today, for about two weeks, the message "Make room for us! - Thanks to your help, we can help faster." will be distributed on posters, flyers and with a TV commercial. Essentially, it is about two situations that occur again and again in the everyday life of the emergency services: Vehicles stopped in front of red lights and not making way and stopping at bottlenecks, such as traffic islands.
The three main messages are:
- As a general rule, the following applies to approaching emergency vehicles with their special signals switched on: Keep calm and move out of the way at a suitable place.
- Make way even when the light is red and, if necessary, drive carefully over the stop bar. Pay attention to the following and crossing traffic. Even if you are flashed, you do not have to expect a fine.
- Thank you for pulling over and stopping. But please do not do so at bottlenecks such as road works and traffic islands.
The participating blue light organizations hope to reach as many people as possible with the campaign and thus create clarity in one or the other traffic situation.
