【救护车驾驶之道】真实开车模拟驾驶2018
时间：2019-02-16 03:35:01 来源：柠檬阅读网 本文已影响 人 
编者按（TOM）：作者汤姆•瑞纳德（Tom Reynolds）是一名救护车司机，他的个人博客现在已经成为网上最受欢迎的博客之一了，这主要归功于他对其丰富生活的日常观察。他的文章虽有厌世情绪，但却极富幽默感，本文就是一个很好的范例。
After all the assessments,the training and the first timeracing around the streetsof London being sworn at,you finally end up on yourown, in a new part of townwhere you are expected to getto emergency calls in eightminutes.
I got posted to Newham,which is a ten minute drivef r om wh e r e I l i v e ; b utunfortunately I"d never driventhere and my navigation wasawful. When I told my newworkmates where I lived theythought (after, "If he livesthere I wonder if he"ll steal mycar?"), "Good - someone whoknows the area". This wasbefore the days of satellitetracking where you just haveto follow the dulcet tones ofthe computer (sometimesin Danish if some brightspark has reprogrammed thecomputer); in those days youhad a mapbook and wereexpected to get on with it.
Gradually you get to knowthe streets, where the regularslive, the pubs that are "trouble"and where the 6"6" widthrestrictions are. You thenhave to counter every threatthe "natives" throw at you.
For instance, you are drivinga big white (or bright yellow)van, covered with flashinglights and with "ambulance"w r i t t e n o n t h e s i d e .Occasionally, if you feel likepushing out the boat, you"lleven have the sirens going.You might therefore expectpeople to get out of the way;instead pedestrians will bedrawn to run out in frontof you, like a particularlydim-witted moth to a flame.People in cars will suddenlydevelop selective blindnessand idiots with drum "n" basspounding out from stereosworth more than their carwill argue that you shouldmake way for them.
Drivers will pull out fromside turnings in front of you,and as for the bizarre ideassome people have as to thebest way to clear a path for us(jump on the brakes, swervein front of us, sit there andpanic), well, it"s a good job weoften don"t have far to travel.
However there are benefitsto driving an ambulance;driving on the wrong sideof the road (at a top speed of20mph mind you) still makesme happy, driving over kerbsis often a giggle, and lets faceit, who wouldn"t like to treatred lights as a "Give Way"?
Despite popular belief, wedon"t actually go that fast - wecan"t, we never know whensome young mother is goingto push her baby buggy outin front of us. At best I thinkwe have a maximum speedof 40mph, not only for oursafety and the safety of otherpeople, but also because theworn out ambulances thatwe drive have an accelerationthat would embarrass a milkfloat, and a top speed of, oh,about 42mph.
I once got on a motorwayand "opened her up". Wegot up to 70mph (downhill,naturally) before the front ofthe ambulance started liftingup and the steering became atrifle unresponsive. Luckily, Imanaged to stop screaming insheer terror enough to regaincontrol.
Mo s t o f o u r a c c i d e n t scome from reversing, I"veoccasionally reversed intop i l l a r s a nd l amp p o s t s ;one person I worked withmanaged to reverse into alow-flying balcony. I haveon at least two occasions gotstuck in a width restriction(I swear, one day I"ll get our7"2" ambulance through a 6"6"restriction - I just need to getup a decent head of speedbefore tackling it). Thankfullyour ambulances are so olda nd bat t e r ed t hat sma l lamounts of damage just addto the character of the vehicle.
Of c ou r s e , a l l t h a t h a schanged with the new yellowMercedes Sprinters. Or atleast it would if they haven"tall started get t ing faultsaround the 5,000 mile mark.Our station had three of thenew ambulances, now wehave none. They are all eitherbeing patched up, or shippedback to Germany to havemajor repairs done. Currentreports are that the fibreglassback is splitting from themetal chassis-possibly due tothe number of speed-bumpswe have to contend with.
Speed-bumps - good idea intheory, but in practice theyslow us down by a hell of alot, wreck the ambulances,and in five years time I intendto go on permanent sick leavebecause my kidneys havebeen shaken out through mymouth. My plan to get localcouncillors thinking a littlemore sensibly about speedbumpswould be to strapthem down on a spinal boardand drive them through thestreets - I think they would bebegging for mercy after fiveminutes.
Parking is a nightmare inNewham as well. We oftenhave a line of traffic parkedon either side of the road,making side streets effectivelysingle track routes. Whenwe get a call for a chest pain(you know, the sort of thingthat could be a heart attack),then we have no choice butto park in the middle of theroad, blocking any othertraffic. At no point do weengage in the "how muchtraffic can I stop" game - wedon"t like confrontation at all,we like a nice quiet life, so wearen"t trying to wind peopleup on purpose.
Unfortunately some peopledon"t see it like that and willsit there honking their hornat us to get a hurry on. I thinkit"s incredibly rude to thinkthat your journey is moreimportant than that of anemergency ambulance. Don"tyou?
I"m off to work now to drivea r o u nd t h o s e s e l f s amestreets...wish me luck, andif you see me in your rearview mirror, please get out ofthe way by pulling over andstopping on the left of theroad.
from the website Random Actsof Reality
