ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ijmorlan]

Although to be fair to the driver, an occupied car in a fire lane isn’t really a problem — if they see a fire truck presumably they’ll clear out. The problem comes when people leave their car, so there is no way short of ramming it for the fire truck to get through.

"Occupied" doesn't mean easily moved.  Many times people leave passengers in the car with the direction to move if by-law comes by.  I could write a ticket faster than they could alight a vehicle and walk around to the driver seat.  If it was my family member waiting for the ambulance that couldn't get by while that person moved seats of a vehicle, all because someone couldn't walk an extra 50'....

If there was a person in the driver seat, I would turn on flashing red lights to the front and honk my horn.  If the vehicle didn't move, it got a $100 gift from the city.  You would be surprised at how many people would ignore me [and when you saw red flashing lights, you shouldn't assume its just some nobody wanting to get by].  You would also be surprised at how many times I have seen drivers sitting in their car (outside banks and Tim Horton's mostly) that remain parked when ambulance and/or fire trucks come down the fire route. 

Coke

My problem is that when I’m thinking through how procedures or systems could work I assume the participants are thinking individuals. Similar situation: in some places left turns are prohibited. Why? Because there is no space to put a left turn lane, so allowing left turns means allowing one car trying to turn left to hold up straight through traffic for an indeterminate period of time. King at Queen is like this. If people were thinking, the rule could be “no waiting to turn left when traffic is behind you”. But how well would that work?

Same with the fire route waiting. It should work, but as you’ve noted, it doesn’t.