While responding code 3 in our ambulance to a male pinned between a 500 ton counterweight and an I-Beam a hundred feet in the air on a crane at a refinery, my partner and I encountered a car attempting to keep pace in front of our ambulance. We were travelling approximately 50 miles per hour in the left lane of a 40 mph zone on a major street. We were approximately 500 feet behind the vehicle when the driver unexpectedly slammed on his brakes and brought his car to a complete stop. I was still far enough back with plenty of time to merge and pass him on the left (travelling on the wrong side of the road). As we got closer to the stopped vehicle the driver turned LEFT in front of us and stopped, blocking our path in a blatant attempt to cause an accident. I had slowed to 40 mph and had just enough clearance to go around him to the right to miss him by six or seven inches. We had all of our lights activated, our two sirens were on different modulations and we were sounding our air horn. It appeared this driver had his windows down.
While most drivers out there are simply ignorant of the legal requirement to pull all the way to the right and yield the entire width of the road to emergency vehicles, we must not forget there are some who are willing to endanger everyone around them in order to get money from insurance.
