In the UK when ambulance comes tearing down the road you get the hell out of its way. Why? Cos one day it could be you needing emergency treatment.
Whats the procedure in other countries?
Here it seems to be: Light another fag and be on your merry way, ignoring the commotion and flashing lights.
It’s one thing that makes me mad…
What really makes me mad is that whenever I try to pull over to the right side to allow the ambulance a clear path, people behind me honk the shit out of me. They think, why the fk is this stupid guy pulling over and stopping, why doesn’t he just speed ahead of the ambulance. Everytime this happens I say to myself, "one of these days these fkers are going to need an ambulance and I hope while in the ambulance and dying they see a**holes like themselves blocking their ambulance’s path."
In some countries, it’s law that you have to pull over and stop. Here, it’s a call to pile in behind the ambulance and try to jump a few car lengths! 
Perhaps the drivers realise that the ambulance arrival makes no difference to the casualty anyway; may as well carry on as normal.
what’s even worse is that te ambulances here arent equiped to do much like in the west… basically just a van with a few seats and enough room for the stretcher… that’s what i find mind boggling. emt’s at home are a vital link in saving lives and stabilizing the patient.
I hear you… and I do agree… but the cynic in me keeps saying, yep, but based on the law of averages, whoever is in that ambulance most likely is the kind of bastard who doesn’t pull over for ambulances, and is most likely getting his just deserts…
however Gandalf (ie. JRR Tolkien) had some good words on the topic "Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. "
What’s funny is when an ambulance is behind cars at a red light…maybe some of the cars try and move over…but the ambulance can’t get through. If you are at a red light and an ambulance is behind you…you can run the red. That’s the rule in Canada…even though many people there don’t know it as well. But it’s ironic that the ONE TIME people here are SUPPOSED to run a red light…and they don’t…even though they do it a lot the rest of the time.
Is it the rule here? Its also the rule in some Canadian provinces that you have to have winter tyres during certain months. And that you’re forbidden from having sex with a moose while in view of a public road (if that’s not a law then it should be, I feel). What has that to do with Taiwan?
My first day in-country, I was being taken to the hospital for my medical when an ambulance came screeching out of the hospital with sirens a-blaring. The xiao-jie accompanying me informed me that it was taking a near dead person back home so they could croak in familiar surroundings. Strange, but true.
The law is the same here…You are supposed to yeild to any and all emergency vehicles. The law has been in place since the Vietnam war.
Not that anybody pays any attention to it, and it’s one of my pet peeves. I keep my crossing guard/uniform, flags and whistle in the truck, and I use them liberally if I find an ambulance blocked by traffic. Since my garb is good for anywhere in Taoyuan county, they usually respond pretty quickly especially when I get out my camera.
If that doesn’t work, I’ve been known to “nudge” the offending vehicle out of the way… 
I don’t think its a big deal.
The ambulance will just get there and;
. throw the vitims in like its a dirty laundry pick up
. ignore them on the way to hospital.
. possibly have an accident and compound the injuries.
So at least they can have a few more moments peace before all this happens.
I get the hell out of the way because the driver is quite likely drunk as well as reckless. It’s much safer behind them than in front. Good luck getting your rights after a crash with an ambulance. They’re as evil as the cabbies and get more public sympathy.
I work for a company specialising in ambulance conversions and supplying emergency medical equipment…
We sell cheap ambulances, we sell expensive ambulances.
We often get ambulance drivers coming back to our workshop for modifications and repairs. All of these ambulance personnel are fully trained, many of them having travelled to places like Canada for the best emergency medical training.
I hold these people in high regard.
A lot of the time, they have to rescue some piss-head, who has just smashed his car up, or attend to domestic violence scenario. They get more abuse than my knackered old scooter.
I hear a lot of the stories they have to tell, but won’t bore you with them all.
Just remember that these guys are saving lives and should be treated with respect.
Also, to equip an ambulance is unbelievably expensive! A defibrillator can cost in excess of US$10,000.
An ambulance cot (stretcher) can cost anywhere between US$1000-10,000.
To import a yank ambulance into Taiwan costs US$100,000 (without any life saving equipment).
While these ambulances are very technically advanced, they are also very heavy, slow and extremely difficult to manoever through some tiny city alleyways.
Anyway, hats off for ambulance drivers and their paramedics!
Sometimes I think we should fit ram bars to the front of the vehicles (like in Mad Max) to shunt some vehicles out of the way.
I’ve rambled on enough.
Scotty.
Oh, man, after utter losers who selfishly and callously refuse to help the injured, this is probably the most INFURIATING thing about Taiwan!!!
If I find myself 2nd to 5th in line at a red, and an ambulance comes up from behind and people don
[quote=“scotty”]All of these ambulance personnel are fully trained, many of them having travelled to places like Canada for the best emergency medical training.[/quote]Sweet. Please publish a phone number where these guys can be reached in a pinch, because most of our experiences are the exact opposite.
I am very serious when I say please post contact phone numbers in all major cities for these trained ambulance drivers. You will save foreigners lives.
Even if they drive poorly equipped vehicles if they are trained as you say it would be worth waiting for them and paying them whatever is needed.
Real tragedies happen to locals and foreigners alike all the time. I met a friend last year who is a tough old bastard but almost in tears as he described an expat lying in a Taipei hospital virtually brain dead because the untrained crew did not treat him on the way to hosptial.
I’m already with you sir, I’m already with you :bravo: :bravo: :bravo: :bravo:
[quote=“scotty”]I work for a company specialising in ambulance conversions and supplying emergency medical equipment…
We sell cheap ambulances, we sell expensive ambulances.
[/quote]
Scotty, I heard that a lady I met once named Hope, I believe it was, had been involved for decades in getting ambulance services established in Taiwan. Do you know anything about that? Just curious. From the sound of it, initially there simply weren’t any ambulances, or at least nothing Westerners could take seriously.
In that case you must cater to the ambulance driving elite… since I can guarantee that that is not the case in Taichung city, or Taichung county… In 6 years in Taiching I have never seen anything but disinterested, untrained yobs, who are made to drive ambulances in lieu of doing military service, and their vehicles are nothing but a mini van with a stretcher in the back and a basic home 1st aid box, which stays firmly shut…
I’m not doubting your claim at all mind you… It’s just a sad fact that Taipei is at least 10 years ahead of the rest of the island…
[quote=“plasmatron”]… their vehicles are nothing but a mini van with a stretcher in the back and a basic home 1st aid box, which stays firmly shut…[/quote]A few months back I had to make a tourniquet because the ambulance guys didn’t have one, and didn’t even know how to clamp the brachial artery I had to clamp the frigging thing with one hand and rip cloth to make the tourniquet with the other hand and my teeth while two cops and two ambulance guys stood around and watched, from a safe distance outside the pool of blood the victim was lying in. Pathetic. I think their plan was to let the guy bleed to death and then toss him in the back of the van when he was nicely drained and wouldn’t make a big mess. :fume:
Once I was finished I asked the ‘crew’ why they wouldn’t help me and they replied it wasn’t their job to handle patients, just to drive them. :loco:
Scotty, please post those phone numbers. Down here in Taichung I’d call a cab before an ambulance as they’ll arrive sooner, cost less money, and the driver is just as likely to have first-aid training or equipment and/or be willing to get stuck in and help.