- cross-posted to:
- lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
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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)
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 shit together.
I believe this video is from before the congestion pricing in NYC. I wonder if and how much it has improved since.
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.
Does congestion pricing cause people to give way to ambulances? 🤣
Haha I like what you did there at the end
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Not only that, in many places there are dedicated bus, and taxi (and sometimes tram) lanes which can also be used by emergency services.
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.
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.
Audio: Whoever needed it, they’re dead.
Subtitle: Whoever needed it, they’re okay.That’s why nobody drives in New York. Too much traffic.
This seems paradoxical…
They’re paraphrasing a Yogi Berra joke.
I knew it from Futurama, but you learn something new every day!
For anyone wondering, the Rettungsgasse (“rescue aisle”) is something we do on longer stretches of road whenever congestion happens, to allow ambulances to pass through as quickly as possible. Everyone on the right side of the road keeps to the right and everyone on the left keeps to the left, forming a roughly ambulance-sized gap in the middle. On multi-lane roads, it’s formed to the right of the left-most lane.
There’s also laws for it. You can get fined, if you hold up the ambulance, because you failed to form the Rettungsgasse, or if you have the audacity to drive down the Rettungsgasse to try to skip a traffic jam.
It’s not really a thing in cities like shown in the video, as we’d typically try to drive into side roads or onto parking spaces or the sidewalk to make room for the ambulance. The laws don’t apply there either.
This is the law in both America and Canada, the issue is either just assholes deciding they are more important than the ambulance ,or a lack of places to move.
And also we just let people die instead of enforcing the rules.
Fuck drivers
The ambulance should havet the right to trash the cars of they don’t move out of the way. That would maybe get people to move.
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.
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
Same here. I’m German. I mean, yeah, maybe for a few seconds or something. Until people fucking moved out of the way.
Neither have I in America.
Same in Sweden.
Ok boomer
Ah, so it is because of bikes! /s
Easy Douggie!!
Yeah those pesky cyclist blocking the road ahead!
Now I want a kinky bicycle. I just have a straight one.
Kinky and straight aren’t mutual exclusive 😏
Tape a dildo to the seat, now you have one too
NYC needs to ban cars
No cars on the island at least
Never send paramedics to do a German cyclist’s job!
In my experience this, and running red lights, is more of an American phenomena than one inherent to cars
alt source? catbox won’t load for me and many others.
This is because Americans are garbage people
Wowowow
This is something of a new development in my experience. When I first started driving, people would actually move over to allow emergency vehicles to pass. But since COVID, it’s just gotten ridiculous. Absolutely nobody pulls the fuck over anymore.
I am also pretty sure it’s still against the law to not make way for emergency vehicles.
This guy is smug as fuck… is he really equating heavy traffic in NYC to all of America?
yes. kind refreshing to see that it isn’t just american influencers that make emotionally charged and shitty content.
There are many things to criticize the US for, but this guy is just an asshole. There is literally nowhere for those drivers to move aside to.
Yes there is: lots of gaps and the sidewalk is also available. The outer vehicles can move to the sidewalk and make way for the inner vehicles. There was plenty of space to shuffle vehicles around. Plenty!
You think there is no traffic congestions on German streets?
Besides, in Germany we form a gap in advance before we even hear an ambulance. An ambulacen can usually rush through a traffic jam at speeds of like 50kmh or more.
It’s beyond me why this isn’t a thing everywhere.
