Running a red light to give way to an ambulance, will I be fined?

Recently, a citizen sent a question to the Ministry of Public Security , posing a situation: when seeing an ambulance signaling to give way, if the vehicle in front is stopped at a red light and is forced to pass before it can give way, will it be fined for running a red light?

Readers sent a question to the Ministry of Public Security: If the driver is forced to run a red light to give way to an ambulance, will he or she be punished?

In response, the Ministry of Public Security said that according to the provisions of Clause 1, Article 22 of the 2008 Road Traffic Law, an ambulance performing emergency duties is one of the five types of vehicles that have priority when participating in traffic.

Clause 3 of this article also stipulates: when there is a signal from a vehicle with priority on the route, traffic participants must quickly reduce speed, avoid or stop close to the right curb to give way, and must not obstruct the vehicle with priority.

Regarding penalties, Clause 1, Article 11 of the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations 2012 (amended and supplemented in 2020) stipulates that in cases where an administrative violation is committed in an urgent situation, there will be no administrative penalty.

An urgent situation can be understood as a situation in which an individual or organization, in order to avoid a real risk that threatens the interests of the State, the organization, their legitimate rights and interests or those of others, has no other choice but to cause a damage smaller than the damage that needs to be prevented.

In addition, Point d, Clause 1, Article 3 of this Law also stipulates that individuals and organizations that are administratively sanctioned have the right to prove, by themselves or through their legal representatives, that they have not committed an administrative violation.

Thus, compared with the specific case mentioned above, the driver who violates the act of "not obeying traffic light signals" will not be subject to administrative sanctions.

According to the Ministry of Public Security, the driver of the violating vehicle or the driver's legal representative has the right to prove that the failure to comply with the traffic light signal was in an emergency situation to give way to an ambulance on duty to rescue a patient.

At the same time, when giving way, the driver must ensure the safety of other vehicles on the road.

Further explaining, lawyer Ha Cong Tam ( Hanoi Bar Association) said that the damage (if any) from the act of running a red light is smaller than the damage (if any) from the ambulance not being given the right of way and not being able to take the patient to the emergency room in time. Therefore, the act of running a red light in this situation, although a violation, is considered in an urgent context, so it is not punished.

Many people wonder how can drivers prove that they ran a red light to give way to an ambulance and not to violate the law?

According to lawyer Tam, Article 3 of the 2012 Law on Handling of Administrative Violations stipulates: the person with the authority to impose penalties is responsible for proving administrative violations; individuals and organizations being penalized have the right to prove, by themselves or through legal representatives, that they have not committed an administrative violation.

That is, to have a basis for handling violations, for example, running a red light, the authorities will check and consider factors related to traffic organization, lanes, vehicle direction, etc. before deciding whether to issue a violation report or not.

Drivers can be completely assured that they will not be "wrongly fined", because if they run a red light to give way to an ambulance, they will be considered when handling the case, especially in the context of the increasingly widespread implementation of cold fines, and the traffic surveillance camera system helps record the incident.

In addition, the driver himself can also prove that his red light running behavior was an urgent situation, for example through the dash cam of his car or another vehicle, requesting to extract traffic surveillance cameras...

However, lawyer Tam noted that when running a red light to give way to an ambulance, one must ensure that one is in the correct lane, on the right road, stops at the right traffic light, and keeps oneself and other road users safe; this does not mean that because one runs a red light to give way to a priority vehicle, one will not be punished for these violations./.

According to Thanh Nien

Source link