Most of us will be conscious that we need to get out of the way of an emergency vehicle on blue lights as quickly as possible when they come up behind. But that's not always the best thing to do.
In fact, drivers can be landed with a fine of as much as £1,000 if they do it wrong. The Highway Code is clear that motorists should give way to vehicles with flashing lights, including police cars, fire engines, ambulances and emergency doctors.
Crucially, though, if you break the law to do so - for example by going into a bus lane or driving through a red light - you could be hit with a big fine. The same goes for entering a yellow box junction.
As well as the fine, some offences, such as running a red light, can add three penalty points to your licence, reports DevonLive.
The Highway Code's instructions are: "You should look and listen for ambulances, fire engines, police, doctors or other emergency vehicles using flashing blue, red or green lights and sirens, or flashing headlights, or traffic officer and incident support vehicles using flashing amber lights."
The code says you should stop before the brow of a hill, never mount the kerb, don't put anyone else in danger and don't brake harshly.
The Blue Light Aware website states: “Of course, there will be times when there simply is no room for an emergency service vehicle to get past, or perhaps its crew are activated by their control room to respond to an emergency while they are waiting with everyone else at the traffic lights.
“On these occasions, they know that other motorists are not allowed to ‘jump’ the red light, and the emergency vehicle would ideally not activate its sirens and lights until it was safe for the vehicle in front to cross the solid white line at the junction.
“On the (hopefully) rare occasions that a blue light vehicle, in 'emergency mode', is sitting behind another vehicle at a red traffic light, it’s important to appreciate that it would be both very dangerous and illegal for the other vehicle to move across the solid white line."
