Opinion: Is slipstreaming an ambulance the right thing to do?

I used an ambulance to speed up my commute in peak-hour traffic. Was that wrong?

There was a crash on the Geelong freeway this morning. I imagine that’s often the case given the 25,000+ vehicles that use this arterial every weekday to commute from Victoria’s second-largest city into the capital. This morning, however, was the first time I had joined the 75-kilometre rolling scrum.

I left home before 7:00am and traffic flowed well until it gridlocked at the Hoppers Crossing turnoff 25 kilometres short of Melbourne. Me being a novice Squinter (so-called because G-Town commuters drive into the rising sun to work and into the setting sun when homeward bound), I wondered if this was typical. The reason for this slowdown, I discovered, was because a P-plate Mazda 6 had run up the back of a Honda CR-V. A police car and ambulance were on the scene.

Once past the crash, the traffic flowed again, but it soon slowed to a crawl where the Western Ring Road divergence steals two lanes, forcing all city-bound traffic to squash into the other two. 

Shortly after that point, I noticed an ambulance coming through traffic behind me in the right-hand lane, lights flashing and siren blaring. Traffic was crawling along at 20–30km/h, and the ambulance was forced to travel well below the speed limit as cars in front slowly moved out of the way.

As it came closer to me, I moved over to the left to let it past, and then pulled back into the lane in its wake.

And stayed right behind the ambulance for the next 10 kilometres.

It wasn’t intentional, initially. I just found it easy to keep up with the ambulance as it parted traffic like Moses and the Red Sea. Changing out of the lane behind the ambulance wasn’t an option, because firstly I didn’t need to get off the freeway, and secondly the lane beside me was moving more slowly.

But after a while, it did become intentional. I stayed close behind the ambulance, but at a safe-enough distance that I could pull up if it braked suddenly.

When we crested the West Gate Bridge, the ambulance started changing lanes to exit left. I needed to go further, so we parted ways and I rejoined the bumper-to-bumper peak-hour shuffle. All up, I estimate that the ambulance slipstream cut 10 minutes off my commute. 

I will admit that I felt a bit guilty early on about using the ambulance as a blocker. But then I thought about it a bit more and wasn’t sure if I was actually doing anything wrong – legally or morally. 

I wasn’t being inconsiderate to other road users by stopping across a clearway or an intersection. I wasn’t cutting into heavily backed-up turning lanes in front of drivers who had patiently waited their turn. As far as I could tell, I wasn’t inconveniencing or endangering any other road users.

The ambulance never exceeded the speed limit, so neither did I.

As far as the law goes, I can’t find anything directly relating to ambulance following. According to VicRoads, cars must slow to 40km/h when passing stationary emergency vehicles with flashing lights, but there’s nothing relating to following moving emergency vehicles.

So, did I do anything wrong, or is this kind of opportunism okay?

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