Home SECTION II ABOUT THE MOVEMENT OF VEHICLES CHAPTER III PASSAGE PRIORITY SECTION 4 EMERGENCY SERVICES VEHICLES Article 68 Rights of drivers of priority vehicles

Article 68 Rights of drivers of priority vehicles

by Mark Nolan

1. Drivers of priority vehicles must observe the principles of this regulation, although, provided they have ensured that they do not endanger any road user, they may fail to comply subject to this being at their own responsibility, except for the orders and signals of police officers, which are always mandatory.

The drivers of such vehicles may also, exceptionally, when they drive on a motorway or dual-carriageway on urgent service and do not endanger the safety of any user, turn around or reverse, or drive in the opposite direction to the traffic, provided they do so using the hard shoulder, or go over the central reservation or crossing sections of this.

 

The agents of the authority responsible for surveillance, regulation and control of traffic may use or locate their vehicles in the part of the road that is necessary when they provide assistance to the users of it or as required by the needs of the service or of the traffic. Likewise, they will determine in each specific case the places where emergency services vehicles or other special services should be positioned.

2. Vehicles of the police, fire fighting, public safety and rescue services, and of health care, public or private, that travel on urgent service and whose drivers warn of their presence by means of the simultaneous use of the illuminated signal, to which article 173 refers, and of equipment that emits special acoustic signals, to which the regulations refer, will have the status of priority vehicles.

 

As an exception to the provisions of the previous paragraph, drivers of priority vehicles must use the light signal on its own when the omission of the special acoustic signals does not entail any danger to other users.

 

3. Breaches of the regulations of this rule will be considered as serious.

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