On 2008-08-03 10:25:04 +0100, Andy Burns
said:

On 02/08/2008 23:48, Andy Hall wrote:

So answer the question. If you had been the patient, what would you
want to happen? Dead dog or dead you?

Dead dog every time, and don't stop afterwards!

But my point wasn't the relative value of human life over animal life,
rather could the ambulance driver have avoiding running it over if it
hadn't been a dog?

- If so then why not avoid the dog too and therefore avoid having to
stop after the accident?

- If not then why does the value of the life in the back of the
ambulance exceed that of anyone who happens to be unable to get out of
the way?

Valid points.

The owner apparently did get out of the way but the dog didn't which
raises the question of whether the owner had the dog properly under
control.

I was really making a different point though.

- It's possible for somebody to be run over just by carelessly
stepping off of the pavement. Outcome can be death or injury from
that whether the vehicle is traveling at 30 or 60MPH. In a busy
High St. it's more likely to be lower speed.

- We do accept that emergency vehicles should be able to travel faster
than the rest of the traffic and to make a lot of noise to encourage it
to move out of the way as well as notifying pedestrians of the approach
of the vehicle. One doesn't often read of emegency service vehicle
drivers having problems or being criticised if they do.


Essentially, we want to have emergency backup quickly because tomorrow
we may be having a problem. Therefore we have to accept that there
is a higher level of risk when vehicles move quickly. The operators
do attempt to train the drivers to do a good driving job.

We could choose to say that emergency drivers must follow all traffic
law at all times. This might reduce accident rates a little.
However, it would make a much larger impact on outcome at emergencies.
On balance, we choose to take that risk and so we really can't then
criticise the driver if something happens when they have followed their
training and procedures properly.