I'm likely just a nit

[sledghammer]

Here's a neat little website, where cops nominate 'dicks of the month.' Basically outing cops who have the audacity to give another cop a ticket: copswritingcops

[lippy]

You're ignoring the possibility that he was in a hurry, but not the kind of hurry that requires full out lights and sirens. Maybe.

[g33z3r]

In germany I have only very rarely seen situations where cops, ambulances or fire fighters are using the light/siren option to obviously get personal advantages at traffic lights.

maybe the reason is that turning on the lights alone is not sufficient to ignore traffic rules in germany:

- if they have their ligths on people pay attention and give them way. but as far as I know they also need the siren to have the absolute right to get way under all circumstances.

- if they have their lights on but their sirene off and you are involved in a crash with them while they ignore red traffic lights or the like then they have a problem (since you might not be aware of their approach by their lights alone in some situations).

- so basically they are forced to turn on the siren if overriding red signals. otherwise you can bump into them and get money from their insurance.

- now these sirens are nasty. I guess turning on these (really noisy!) sirens might be a little too obvious for a little cheat if you turn them off again after a few seconds

- also: for a lot of germans their car is something holy and most of them do not like giving up their right of way to anybody ... resistance might be higer here [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]