- Conference
- 2004 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 22 December 2003
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes with concern the effect on the ambulance service and other emergency services of the increasing use by local authorities of electronic speed traps.
Such is the effect of these machines that ambulance services now employ scarce resources simply to deal with the administration of the paperwork generated when ambulances that are answering emergency calls trigger speed cameras. In larger ambulance services there are hundreds of speeding tickets issued against ambulances each year.
Conference calls upon the SGE to campaign to change the existing road traffic legislation to achieve the following:
1.A recognition that in order to respond to category A calls in the target time of 8 minutes, ambulance emergency vehicles have to breach urban and rural speed limits;
2.Acceptance by Government of the need for emergency vehicles such as ambulances, blood transfusion and fire service to breach such speed limits without incurring the penalties within the road traffic legislation that applies to other road users;
3.Removal of the penalties normally imposed for breaches of the speed limit by emergency vehicles that are legitimately responding to emergency calls.