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Martin Brown[_2_]

On 15/06/2017 01:31, wrote:
On Wednesday, 14 June 2017 21:14:27 UTC+1, Andy Burns wrote:
tabbypurr wrote:

I don't know what the legal position is here, but we ought to have a
law permitting fire & ambulance to damage things if necessary to
access life saving measures. I'd bet no such provision exists.
Thankfully, you lose :-P

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/21/section/44

An employee of a fire and rescue authority who is authorised in writing
by the authority for the purposes of this section may do anything he
reasonably believes to be necessary

if he reasonably believes a fire to have broken out or to be about to
break out, for the purpose of extinguishing or preventing the fire or
protecting life or property;

In particular, an employee of a fire and rescue authority who is
authorised as mentioned in subsection (1) may under that subsection

move or break into a vehicle without the consent of its owner;

That doesn't cut it. What's needed is a law that permits
a) a vehicle to be damaged (eg rammed out the way)

A fully laden fire engine just engages a low gear and moves forward
slowly it doesn't need to ram anything to move it out of the way. A few
scratches and bumper dints was all they did to the one I saw.

b) no liability for doing it.
Until those are there, almost no firefighter wold want to bankrupt themselves to save lives by doing this.

ISTR firemen of my acquaintance reckon they are already immune if they
are doing what they deem necessary to save lives or put out a fire.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown