The driving school teaches how to hold the steering wheel, braking gently, negotiating roundabouts … but a specific situation remains absent from the program.
Looking in the mirrors, downgrading, starting a hill, it can be learned. And with a little patience, everything ends up becoming a reflex. Driving instructors know exactly how to teach you the basics. If it is necessary to exercise on a fast path, they take the national. If you have to work on the maneuvers, they take you to an empty parking lot. They adapt the journeys, simulate situations, insist on the weak points. Finally, everything is done to train the driving license candidates under realistic conditions. Or almost.
Indeed, there is a specific situation, very real, that even the best monitors can neither trigger, nor supervise, nor really anticipate. It can occur at any time, on any road, in any city. And it can cause very different reactions depending on the drivers. Some are good, others can cost dearly. Boredom is that there is no way to stage it during a driving session. No instructor can tell you: “Now we’re going to train for that.” And yet, this situation strongly impacts the safety of different road users.
Many young drivers face it very early, sometimes from the first weeks after the exam. Some react to chance, others rely on their instincts. But in many cases, instinct is not the right reflex. And the consequences can be serious: tickets, dangerous behavior, endangering involuntary. The only way to prepare for it? Talk about it, observe, understand how others react. This is what several driving professionals recommend, such as Ann from the tiktok account @ONLINDRIVINGINSTRACTOR. In one of her videos, she admits: there is “One thing that driving school monitors cannot reproduce during lessons are emergency vehicles”. Ambulance, police, firefighters, lit clauses, sirens started.
This kind of situation cannot be simulated during a driving class, simply because we do not control their appearance. And above all, because it is illegal for an instructor to provoke or manipulate this type of scenario. Result: you find out alone, often without being ready.
The best reflex to adopt? Keep calm, slow down gradually and shift as soon as possible, without disturbing traffic or breaking the highway code. If the situation allows, you should never grill a red light, cross a continuous line or stop on a bus route to release the passage. The objective is simple: allow the emergency vehicle to circulate freely, without endangering anyone!
