Priority of emergency vehicles and the emergency corridor in Lithuania

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What counts as an emergency vehicle?

Emergency (special-purpose) vehicles carry blue-and-red or blue-only beacons and special sirens. They include the police, ambulance, fire and rescue services, gas-emergency crews, environmental-control authorities, prisons, statutory interior-ministry bodies, the prosecution service, the State Security Department, the Special Investigation Service, the Second Operational Services Department, the Lithuanian Armed Forces Special Operations Forces, military police, customs and the road-transport inspection. They are brightly marked to be recognised from a distance.

What is not an emergency vehicle?

Road-maintenance vehicles, private security cars and others with orange beacons only. Orange beacons merely warn — you are not obliged to give way to them, and they give their drivers no right to break the Rules.

When you do NOT have to give way

• When the emergency vehicle travels without sirens (e.g. blue-and-red beacons only) — Rules point 187.
• When it is stationary with beacons on but without sirens — point 187.
• When it travels in the opposite direction separated by a dividing strip.
• When the road has more than four lanes and the emergency vehicle travels in the opposite direction.

When you MUST give way

When the emergency vehicle is moving with blue-and-red (or blue-only) beacons and sirens on — you must promptly clear the way. With beacons only and no sirens, it has no priority (point 186).

Responsibility of emergency drivers

Emergency drivers using point 186 must judge whether surrounding drivers will manage to react and clear the way in time. They may depart from the Rules only when it does not endanger traffic safety — so they must always make sure others are actually yielding.

How to give way correctly

Seeing an emergency vehicle approach with beacons on, stop and let it pass. If the road has one lane in your direction, stop on the right shoulder. If there are two or more lanes, vehicles in the leftmost lane move left and stop, while vehicles in the first, second and third right-hand lanes pull as close as possible to the right edge. One row forms on the left, one to three rows on the right — the herringbone-pattern emergency corridor.

The emergency corridor

The herringbone corridor should be about 3 metres wide. If two narrow lanes make a corridor of that width impossible, emergency drivers should choose another way through — for example the opposite carriageway — and a driver who sees an emergency vehicle approaching head-on must give way to it.