Not sure this new road rule is the brightest of ideas!

Apply brakes, use gears to bring the truck to the appropriate speed!

Given they are a "professional driver", this would be well within their skill set- surely! It is also more likely they have seen the lights before the car in front - given their additional height!

It is the law Axle - it's been around for a while now - get over it and move on.

Cheers

Anthony

Axle.
I drove coaches for a while and like trucks do, we slow down when a hazard is seen. The police car has flashing lights to enhance the probability drivres with a brain will respond according to common sense and the law.
Drive past the patrol car faster than 40kmh and their dash cam, really good ones they have, records your number plate and speed and location for the forwarding of personal mail to YOU. Wanna go fast past a police car? Think again.
If drivers haven't got sufficient brain function or are on drugs then, yes, you will get mowed down anytime at all, the law doesn't prevent that.
PS
It is a requirement of having a licence that you operate said vehicle in a manner in which you can stop if a hazard becomes evident. The higher vehice will be able to see a situation usually long before a car driver can.

The 40kph was only introduced in Vic last year , it's actually 25kph in SA .
I had to slow to 40kph on 3 times on one trip into Melbourne, it's evident more than half the drivers either don't know or don't care ,

Came into WA this year. Question is, is this all lanes that pass the emergency vehicle or just the closest lane? Not much of an issue on a normal road but a multi lane freeway or highway could cause some confusion and hold-ups.

He hereby it COULD be dangerous at times is . . . how far from the emergency vehicle position’ do you need to be doing 40, and at what distance ?

There was that NSW lady coming into Adelaide on a he SE freeway, and she claimed a police car had pulled a driver over and was 20m from her lane (and yes, it is 25 in SA, and at highway speeds could be dangerous to slow so much fast, particularly in poor visibility etc.

There appears to be no distance in any legislation I have seen referenced, so it’s up to drivers to use common sense.
But will that be the same as the Police officers view ?
And how will other emergency services like SES or CFS (RFS etc) interpret it, or indeed be able to enforce / report blatant disregard for their safe working area.

A big can of worms open to abuse both ways.
Most motorists using sense and rightful courtesy to emergency responders safety would be ok, but if the inevitable situations occur where they were over enthusiastically booked, it is terribly impractical and costly to fight these things.

No problem for the truck...he is higher than you so would have seen it sooner.
Whatever it takes to keep emergency workers safe I say.

This rule might cause more accidents than it prevents. Especially if you have to slow from 110kph to 25 kph in SA.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-16/sapol-urges-increased-speed-limit-around-emergency-vehicles/9156008

I was driving south from Ballina the other day and saw that two vehicles were parked on the left side of the road. It wasn't until I was quite close that I noticed that the rear vehicle, a dark blue car of some description, had blue and red flashing lights set up, and going, inside the rear tinted window!
The driver, obviously now, an officer of the law, was in the vehicle having just finished with, or about to start, their work on the front vehicle.
The unmarked police car, with what appeared to have rear tinted windows, was giving passing traffic no chance of recognising their official capacity until one passed them!

SA has the richest panel beaters in the country.

There's no chance of an accident, the truckies are professional drivers. They'll see the flashing lights a mile back.....just ask the people pulled up for roadworks out near Dubbo not long ago. The truck cleaned up 8 cars and killed two kids, the flashing lights didn't save them. I'd like to see the statistics on how many people get killed by cars and trucks failing to stop at unexpected hold ups, against how many police or ambulance workers get killed by cars driving dangerously past emergency vehicles with flashing lights on the side of the road. From memory, I've heard of far more of the former compared to the latter but I'm happy to be proven wrong.
This law is fine for built up areas, it's a great idea in fact. It's quite stupid in a lot of ways when applied to high speed motorways. The speed difference is too great, 60 or 70 would be more sensible. South Australia is just plain moronic.

Tell that to the 2 people killed on Moonie Moonie Bridge a couple of weeks ago when a truck went up their clacker.

The driver was 'leaning over to get a cup of coffee" and the traffic had slowed or stopped for congestion at the Gosford off ramp about 2KM ahead. There were 4 cars hit but one completely crushed.

Visibilty was perfect.
Regards Philip A

Its been standard thing in other states
About time ! Considering the fatalities already in other states
one was a tow truck driver and broken down victim on the F3 or was it hume hwy

Apart from emergency vehicles doing their job, what about the hwy patrol on a 110 k/ph freeway that has stopped someone for speeding ? Hardly an emergency situation, but for that everyone has to slow down.
This WILL cause accidents....some people will not know of the new rule, some won't care ....while others that are not paying attention will get caught up in it all..
In the USA, the rule is to drop 20mph off your speed or in multi lane roads, move to the outside lane if possible.....a more sensible approach..

Copper pulled a driver over on the M1 near Hawkesbury River yesterday, presumably for speeding. Lights a-flashing. Just a couple of meters from the near side lane. Everyone whizzing by at 110.

This law was prompted by a tow truck driver who was cleaned up when stopped to help a break down.

Strangely towies and roadside assists are not included...

A little off topic here. But as mentioned above, unmarked cars. What's the go, you can buy a pair of lights of Ebay etc. I wonder whether you could argue your way out of not stopping for such a vehicle? Anyone here be a bit dubious about stopping for an unmarked car on a remote stretch of highway with lights flashing?

If your stupid enough to get into the safe stopping zone most truckies leave in front of their rig then forget he is there and jump on the brakes, he would be doing the rest of us a favour removing you from the road.

I have 2 camera's on the back of our full height van that has a very square & vertical rear and they are at the top edge. One is for distance and the other is a wide angle looking pretty well straight down and a few metres out. It's not unusual to have cars that I can only see in the close in camera. I've also had a couple of trucks so close that the distance camera is looking straight at their face. So close that there's no chance that they could see what is happening in front of me and the actions of the traffic I was following. Now considering that I'll fit a rear dashcam so that if I'm booked for failing to slow to 40/25 I can present video of it being unsafe. You would hope that the Police would take it in to consideration at the time and hopefully take action against the tailgater instead.

Surely it’s high time that we had National Road Rules, how can a driver be expected to be familiar with rules that vary from State to State. I also don’t understand why rule changes & new rules can’t be included with our registration renewals, surely it would be little more than a push of a computer key.
It seems that South Australia have the most onerous school zone rules that must be almost impossible to adhere to as follows:

School zones apply 24 hours a day, 7 days a week throughout the year.

What do they look like?
White zigzag lines are marked on the road, showing you are approaching a school zone. Signs indicate the start and end of school zones.

How do they work?
School zones have a speed limit of 25 km/h at any time when a child is in the zone, including outside of school hours, whenever a child is on the road, footpath, median strip, even if they are on a bike.

A child is any person less than 18 years of age and includes a student of any age wearing school uniform.

I always wonder when I am doing 40KMh in a High School zone what sort of teenagers we are raising when they cannot safely cross the road independently.

I have to say I think it is ridiculous to have 40KMh zones at high schools as in NSW as opposed to primary schools.

At our local Terrigal High School, there are always very few students around at the set times. Most appear to be driving by the car park! LOL

In addition there seems to be no attempt to change the drop off zones to side streets. In AFAIR Blaxland in NSW it Goes from 80KMH to 40KMh on the main road from Sydney to the Central West.
Ah well with the new rules they will probably back down once a dozen or so people are killed. Of course the incident which helped to bring this on where a iced up drongo ran over a breath test cop would not have happened in a 40KMh zone. And I have a bridge to sell.
Regards Philip A


Regards Philip A

Just on the school speed limits, a high school not far from me on a six lane highway has a fence either side of the road, a fence in the median strip and an overhead pedestrian bridge. It still has a 40 kph limit and it's one of the busiest arterial roads in Sydney with about 30,000 cars on an average day.

Axle

To your question, follow the road rules, that is what will be expected of you, and the B-Double driver behind you.

On trucks, I find most truckies professional, courteous and clearly cognisant of the vehicle they are driving - and for good reason, I suspect they also want to make it home to see the family, and not end up a mangled piece of wreckage.

For sure, plenty of rogue drivers out there of all pursuasions, but you only get to control your actions, no-one else’s, there’ll always be someone breaking the rules.

And on distance required to slow down before and after, common sense suggests you slow down with enough time to be at 40klm by the time you pass the emergency vehicle, clearly a B-Double driver might commence that sooner than the ‘bloke’ on a Postie Motorbike.

And distance afterwards? Well commonsense (yep, commonsense) suggests once you are past the emergency vehicle you no longer pose a threat - so resume normal or appropriate speed.

Some might feel challenged by this new rule, others will just get on with it, but if you still have trouble working out how far in advance you should slow down, just put yourself in the emergency workers shoes and ask yourself the question...

As a footnote, just remember whilst it is good driving technique to check your rear-view mirror regularly, it remains the vehicle that is following responsibility to maintain a distance commensurate with the speed being driven that enables the vehicle to respond to unforeseen situations...

Cheers, Baz - The Landy

No need to worry Axle. It does not apply to you.

It really only applies to a few of us here, who are not bush lawyers, but who care enough for our emergency services like Police, Firies and Ambos to want to keep them safe from harm and injury and to make sure they get home of a day or night after work.

You apparently travel on the M1/F3 Sydney - Newcastle Motorway on a regular basis. You will therefore be familiar with the two bridges named after Police officers who were killed doing their job. So, as you go racing past flashing lights you might think of their families. I do .. I knew one of them. If you travel south on the M7 there are other reminders of men doing their job who did not get home.

But, you may bve right. We could also do away with 40kph speeds outside schools too. The number of incidents and fatalities involving semi-trailers, B doubles and even road trains running into the back of cars travelling slowly outside schools means this should also be addressed by our lawmakers.

So off you go ... but me .. I will slow down just to make sure nobody gets hurt. No arguments here.

The way that I'm going to approach this law is to obey the law, assume everyone around me is going to either not see the emergency service or disobey the law and speed, take a look around me and get out of the way as best I can so I don't hit anyone or be hit by anyone. It's actually pretty damn similar to how I already drive really. Business as usual.

Lets look at this from the other perspective, the Gov employs people to uphold the law and respond to emergencies. It is the law that they provide a safe place for their employees to work, and this is their response. Now it is also the law that you leave enough room to emergency brake should an emergency occur. This is a good law. A while back I found myself on the wrong side of the road with oncoming because a pushy was on the road instead of the sidewalk....that's a good example of a bad law.

Had a chat to a Qld highway patrol officer at a truck stop and I asked him what he thought of the new 40kph law regarding blue and red disco lights. Now he was about mid 50's so he had been around and he was also from WA. His slant on it was, I see it as unworkable law that can't really be policed.

He just wanted people to use commonsense and as we all know, that's not going to happen.

I worked Ambulance NSW.
An incident on the Pacific Hwy just north of Coffs Hbr.
Many flashing lights in attendance in full view of approaching vehicles and in daylight.
One motorist didn't get his brain into gear and clouted the lollypop guy waving a slow sign.
In an instant the lollypop man has brain tissue coming from his nose.
I'm for the the 40kph limit and above all be alert of your surroundings.

I call bulls effluent on those who assert professional drivers have the skills and ability to cope with this rule.

Rear end collision after new rule