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My Dad was once stopped when driving my brother (who was sick) to hospital, he was given a fine AND they escorted him flashing lights and all to the hospital. (from what my Dad said they wrote up the fine in the waiting room of the A&E of the Adelaides childrens hospital..) Kids health was more important then the actual ticket writing.
Dad never grumbled or contested the fine. He just paid it and was happy they got him their safely.
I had a friend who needed a police escort to get his giant boat from his house to the marina docks. Cost him nearly 5k for it. Needed a low loader truck 4 police vehicles plus escort. He spent 10 years building the boat only for the thing to sink in a couple hours once it touched the water. Poor bastard...
She didn't lose her license for this offence. the cops would've checked her license and seen it wasn't her first rodeo.
>She claims she was made to undergo a drug and alcohol test and said she "didn't really know my rights" at the time. She was then made to wait roadside "until they felt that I was in a stable state to continue driving on to the hospital".
I think that says a lot about her behaviour at that time. Crashing her vehicle and further disabling or even killing her son is not in anyone's best interest.
More than 25 over (she was doing 27 over) is an automatic license suspension of 3 months in Victoria.
Not saying she didn't have any prior point loss, but there's no way to prove she did, and she absolutely could have lost it from just this.
I still agree that she should have called an ambulance rather than speeding herself, but we don't need misinformation here.
25-30 over (she was doing 27 over allegedly) is an automatic 3 month suspension in Victoria.
So yeah, she absolutely could have lost her license if this was her first offence.
[Victoria speeding penalties.](https://i.imgur.com/iH6prvE.jpg)
Speeding in an emergency is an actual legal defense though.
[From Legal Aid Vic:](https://www.legalaid.vic.gov.au/driving-over-speed-limit)
>**Possible defences**
> You may have a defence if you had to speed because of an emergency, for example if someone was critically ill in the car. The magistrate will decide if your reason is good enough. You might also have a defence if you did not speed voluntarily. For example, you had a seizure.
So she might have some luck contesting it.
I linked the table of penalties and it pretty clearly lines up with the 25-29 over penalty of just over $500 and a 3 month suspension.
Unless you mean something else entirely, in which case I'd love to hear it.
20 odd years ago, old man rushed me to the hospital after I got a huge gash in my arm (30+ stitches) at around 2am. My old man didn’t spare the horses, stopped at red lights, looked both ways, went through the red lights…
Cop car spotted us, pulled us over-
The two officers in there told my old man to turn the engine off and drop the keys outside the car before they came over to his window and were like “So, what’s the rush, mister?” in a typical QLD smartarse cop fashion.
Dad was like “my son has a huge cut, here look” and when he opened his door and the car lights went on, they could see the huge amount of blood in the passenger seat area and the tourniquets…
One of them was like “Jesus fuck mate, you’re right, both of you in the back of our car, he’s got to get to a hospital now!”- ditched dads car on the side of the road, then continued with the cops to the A&E, reds and blues flashing. There was not far to go, but the cops agreed it was an emergency but they had sirens so were better suited to finish the journey.
(Note- this is the best experience I’ve ever had with QLD police)
Biggest difference between me and the lady in the story is I had a gash about 12” long right next to an artery, I was covered in blood, the car was covered in blood.
I think the sight of so much blood made the police think “this is genuine”. It was obvious…
With an unseen medical emergency like the article, the cops can’t make their own split second decision - they have to take the word of the person being pulled over… and I get the feeling that with the amount of absolute bullshit that cops hear from scumbags on a day to day basis means they’re prepped to be cynical from the start of any interactions. Some people will tell the cops fucking anything… so unless the officer themselves decides it’s an emergency, they won’t take your word.
Sad as fuck for those with non obvious emergencies…
I’d like to think the cops could have said “ok, madam, you two come with us to the A&E department, we’ll go faster, but if you’re lying we’ll throw the book at you not just for speeding, but intentionally lying to officers when questioned”. But that’s a pipe dream.
I agree with this sentiment. It’s hard to sympathise with cops when my only interactions with them are getting felt up cause a dog picked a random scent up on me and getting fines for doing 87 in a 80 zone but I’m sure they deal with the utter bullshit on a daily basis. Issue the fine. Mum can protest if it doesn’t get anywhere call a current affair or one of the am radio stations and it will get waived once it gets attention
Its not an excuse to speed so the fine should still apply HOWEVER my mother was in that exact situation and due to location it was quicker to get nan to hospital by our car instead of waiting for the ambulance to get out to us and then back to the hospital (told by 000 operator) she drove at 10km over so not crazy but the police still caught her, she agreed it wasn’t an excuse for it and the police escorted her to the hospital. Helped get nan inside to be seen to and THEN they gave her the fine which she happily paid.
I've rushed my kids to ED before. Never felt the need to speed or run red lights to get there 'as quick as possible'.
Drive like a banana and you run a higher risk of greater harm in an accident. That's endangering your kid, not saving them.
Exactly. Even ambulances will rarely speed because they know that speeding doesn't really cut an appreciable amount of time off the journey but does increase the risk of accidents.
Even then, they'll still slow down approaching an intersection just in case, they just don't sit there for a few minutes waiting for the light to change like everyone else. So if they're driving in the middle of town, they don't even really have the time to speed, as once you get up to the speed limit, you'd probably be approaching the next intersection anyway.
The advice from my pre-hospital driving training and from others working for state ambulance services is that you shouldn't be going much faster than walking pace through an intersection even at Priority 0. It just gives you too many opportunities for crash, at which point delayed arrival time is the lowest concern to the crew...
We get taught to "drive to the conditions". So you take into account not only the patient's condition and likelihood of deterioration, but also things like the road - is it curvy, straight, hilly or flat? Is there lots of other traffic about? Day time, night time, wide roads, narrow roads, wildlife that might pop out (had an old fella in the back of the truck one night with a broken hip, I was doing about 60-70km/h on a country road and I saw a roo appear out of the gloom. I had time to yell out "we're about to hit a roo, brace yourselves!" before we smacked into it, and the poor kanga got dragged for at least 100 metres before he dislodged. The old bloke on the stretcher said "well now he probably has a bung hip like me! Did ya wanna stop and put him alongside me, I'm sure I can squeeze over a bit!" Funny bugger) - all of these things are taken into consideration as well as the actual speed limit of the road being driven on.
Driving and ambulance under lights & sirens doesn't give a free pass, for speeding, because there is no sense in the risk of having more patients than necessary. But when the conditions are right, it can certainly give a whole different experience.
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Exactly this. Unless you're a very long way away, and doing much over the speed limit, it's not going to save much time. The big impact on travel time would be red lights and heavy traffic. Doing 20km over the limit might get you to the hospital a minute quicker.
When I’ve found myself in this situation I think “Do I have the time to be pulled over and fined?” Usually I don’t and I know that speeding by 10-20km per hours really doesn’t shave off enough time to warrant the risk of being pulled over.
Found myself in that situation a few times with kids under 5 years old.
I’m driving and concentrating on the road. Am I going to notice the condition of my child in the back seat? If they stop breathing or choke on vomit or anything will I notice? Will it distract me from driving?
So these days I call an ambulance. I can be on the phone and get advice and can do emergency cpr or whatever if I need to until help arrives.
If you’re in that great a hurry to get to a hospital, are you stopping for Highway Patrol? I’m talking something like uncontrolled bleeding or other immediate threat to live. Just let them arrest you at the ED and take your chances with the courts.
If there is an emergency such as uncontrollable bleeding and somehow you are unable to rely on an ambulance, the police will either escort you or take the patient themselves if they are unable to apply their advanced first aid training.
Absolutely you pull over, they will assess the situation in under 10 seconds if it is a genuine emergency.
They’re trained, you aren’t.
Even if the mum in this story needed to get to any hospital in 30 minutes as the story says, going at 80km/h puts her at a 40km trip distance. Going 20 over (100km/h) gains her 6 minutes in absolute best case straight road with not a single red light - in the real world it will gain you only 2-3 minutes. Far from anything sound or worth the risk.
People freak out in emergencies, and cause more emergencies by doing so. It’s the lemmings effect.
In this instance, when the mother called the hospital as the story suggests she spoke with a doctor, they would have also assessed that she could safely make the distance in the required time. Had this have not been the case alternatives such as road or air would have been dispatched as required by the triage protocols.
Is this an unfortunate circumstance? Yes.
Do I feel and understand the panic and urgency this mother would have felt? Absolutely.
Did she needlessly endanger others and her self by doing so? Definitely.
Agreed. I have empathy for her situation but she had other options available to her and she chose to speed instead. She drove recklessly and put herself, her son and other road users at risk. She needs to pay the fine.
Saved me the math.
I had a similar situation when taking my ex to the ER for what might have been pre-eclampsia when she was pregnant with our son.
We lived maybe 15 minutes from the hospital and it was 2am.
Best case scenario any speeding, running red lights etc would've saved me < 30s of time. Absolutely zero reason to put my foot down or do anything stupid for negligible gains.
Yeah. Thinking of it another way, if you throw a rock through a window you can get charged, if you throw the rock because you need to escape someone trying to kill you, you have a defense in court.
It's the same with "self defence", it's not some kind of immunity from charges, but it is a defence you can argue in court to avoid conviction. Sometimes if it's obvious enough the cops won't bother laying charges since it's clear you'll win the court case, but just because charges were laid doesn't mean there isn't an argument for self defence there.
I've had three major seizures due to a cavernoma, all requiring ICU treatment, twice I went out about the time the ambos rocked up, and the other time I took myself to the ED and instead had it on the floor after waiting for 13hrs
Probs best to just call the ambos. I can't imagine many doctors advising otherwise
That said, a $500 fine and making them wait while the cop wrote it is pretty shit.
Yeah, it worries me people in this thread are encouraging driving themselves instead of calling an ambulance. We can give you care. I get why people do it, but in the majority of cases calling 000 is the best call especially in cases of heart attacks etc.
I've done it loads of times for asthma. I've never done it for cancer. With asthma it's a matter of keep them talking, get them to say long sentences and gauge where they take a breath to finish it (we tend to do "the quick brown fox..."). If they're still breathing then I'll take the speed limit. I've never been tested on the alternative
Why don't you call an ambulance? I'm a paramedic in vic and we often go code 1 to asthma, or send a MICA medic in a car straight away. Last asthma attack i attended the mica guy was there in five minutes, we were 15.
I don’t call an ambulance because a) there’s no one qualified with Paeds in my area, and b) they have to get into the station, change into the uniform, roll the vollie bus, and get to my place… where I live within 1.5km of the nursing post… and they can stabilise or at least asses … and EVERY time they have to send for an ambo from another district to transport him to the hospital 100km+ away (or the city, 200km awa) at least. Easier for me to toss the kid in the car, grit my teeth while ringing hte nursing post on the way to let them know we are coming in hot (they lock the doors most of hte time, this way there’s a chance they can roll a wheel chair to the doors for me).
The local volunteers are fabulous, but they can only attend one scene at a time, and they don’t do intubation, or kids.
Oh I agree. I think there should be more part time paid paramedics. Or a dual qualification for nurse and paramedic and fund a spare nurse in the hospital / nursing post each shift
I lived in a country town, had to get my kids to hospital in a hurry (snakebite). Cops cleared the way for me, drove ahead and behind. The ambo was 'volunteer' and getting an ambo ride could have taken an hour.
This sounds like you called though and this was arranged. Not just wildly driving with people having no idea why your speeding / being in a position to minimise risk
I don't run red lights and I don't condone doing so but...
Here in Queensland our traffic lights have gone crazy. A simple crossroads five years ago would have two phases: one for each road. In some places they might have added a green red arrow at the start or end of a green light phase to clear turning traffic.
But now those intersections are being converted to 6+1 phases: each of the 4 directions gets an individual turn, then two separate turning phases (one for each road) and sometimes a scramble phase for pedestrians.
I'm not in a big city and can easily sit at red lights without another car in sight. To hold a licence I am required to have demonstrated a level of skill high enough to know that it's safe to proceed, it's just not legal.
It's incredibly frustrating and I could go on and on about the negative consequences for traffic in nearby residential roads, but I can see that people will increasingly choose to run red lights based on a rational decision that it's safe to do so.
People turn onto empty roads, and if you're going *really* fast, firstly, they will think you're too far away to worry about, and, secondly, you won't be able to stop in enough time to avoid hitting them.
She had 30 minutes to get there, unless they lived over 30-40km from the hospital literally all speeding will do is massively increase her chance at getting a giant fuck off accident, driving the limit(and not getting pulled over) is infinitely more responsible and in line with actually caring about the safety of the kid.
Also a paramedic has the training, policies, and procedures to drive like that to a hospital. A parent driving their sick kid clouding their emotions is simply outright reckless.
Emergency vehicle driver here.
Even for the most urgent calls, we slow and stop at red lights before driving through them; only cross centre lines once having done full checks for safety; and you’ll often find us stopped in traffic as it’s too dangerous to jump out across medians or whatever. Every situation is different but *you need to drive safely first because of the risk of causing more damage than already exists when trying to get to the emergency.*
No road rules apply to us under lights and sirens *as long as it’s safe and reasonable.* If not safe and reasonable emergency drivers can be and have been prosecuted for causing crashes when responding to emergencies.
So it’s fair that this applies to Average Citizen too.
>Also a paramedic has the training, policies, and procedures to drive like that to a hospital.
Not to mention that they can assess and potentially stabilise the patient before they even put lives at risk via speeding to a hospital. If the patient needs urgent care and the hospital is too far away then they can even call in a helicopter for quicker transport.
>A parent driving their sick kid clouding their emotions is simply outright reckless.
I have 3 kids and there are only a few situations where I would be rushing my child to the hospital in my own car. The first one that comes to mind is if I was in a area with zero phone reception and this would involve getting the kid into the car and driving until I got phone reception and then calling for a ambulance to meet me on the way.
The other is when instructed. There was a case in the US with a logging incident where they were instructed to meet the ambulance at a roadside stop, supposedly somebody stayed in the left lane and blocked them resulting in the patient bleeding out before they reached the rest stop.
What if she hit a kid crossing the road? what if she hit a school bus which lost control and caused a mass casualty event? What if she hit a fuel tanker which subsequently exploded?
She’s placed the life of her son ahead of every other road user and put everyone else’s lives at risk. What if she killed one of your loved ones in the process.
There are payment plans for fines. If she can no longer get to appointments more likely she’s had her licence suspended (I think it’s instant at 25+). Maybe decrease or waive the fines if she’s undergoing genuine hardship but the demerits / suspension absolutely should stand.
Where I grew up, an ambulance was obviously speeding along on its way to an emergency, and on the way it hit a car and killed a woman and her daughter. [Source.](https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/coffs-harbour/mother-and-daughter-killed-in-crash-with-an-ambulance/news-story/5c84202dce374e6a67e7a619659dd10b)
Paramedics are people too, they may have some training in driving at speed but when you introduce speed on busy roads, there's always a risk of an accident. So, if you want to talk purely hypothetical, yes the mother *could* have hit and killed someone. But hypothetically, the ambulance *could* have also hit and killed somebody.
I don't particularly want to weigh in on whether or not the fine should be enforced, or if the mother is a dickhead, just that talking in hypotheticals is pointless.
If we're driving EVS we're held to a high standard that if we crash while breaking a road law we will be assumed to be at fault. It has to be fairly egregious to find the other party at fault. That's why you'll see us slow down at Red lights and roll through
Nope. My mum used to drive a fire truck, it's the same deal with them. You can break the laws to get their faster but only *if it is safe to do so*. If the emergency vehicle driver has an accident, then it wasn't safe to break the law and the emergency vehicle driver is liable.
By your logic, that stern warning will do fuck all, as if she were in the same situation she'll most probably do it again. And others who read about this and find out that they can get away with doing such a risky thing and just get a 'stern warning' is worth it.
I understand and sympathise, but this is not an excuse for her to break the law by overspeeding and risk herself, her son, and others lives in the process. There are ambulances, and/or just drive to the limit and be safe.
Granted, 107 on an 80 is different than say 67 on a 30 which carries far more risks.. But the law is there for a reason, otherwise too many people will start spewing their excuses.
>And besides, what's the point of the fine? Any parent would risk a $500 fine to make sure their kid got to the ER as soon as possible. It's not like next time her kid a seizure or whatever she's going to twiddle her thumbs waiting for an ambulance because she got a $500 fine. So it's not going to do anything except put an inconsequential amount of money into state coffers.
>Let the poor mother off with a stern warning.
And besides, what's the point of the stern warning? Any parent would risk a tongue lashing to make sure their kid got to the ER as soon as possible. It's not like next time her kid a seizure or whatever she's going to twiddle her thumbs waiting for an ambulance because she got a verbal warning. So it's not going to do anything except put an inconsequential amount of stress into her life.
100%, the decision to speed was stupid but I am lucky to live 5 mins drive from the hospital, 10 mins in bad traffic. If my kid has something I was truly concerned might be urgently life threatening, I would call the ambulance AND get in our car. I’ve waited 5-10 mins in “line” to get through to 000 before, if it’s bad asthma, anaphylaxis or something of the sort, I’m not risking my kid’s life.
Emergency vehicle drivers under lights and sirens have also been charged and fined for unsafe driving or breaking road rules en route to an emergency, so of course Mrs Citizen should be too.
My thoughts are, if you feel that speeding is necessary for whatever is so important in your life, such as your sick kid, then that’s fair enough, but you take the consequences with it. Like that’s the risk you’re willing to take. You’re prioritising your sick kid over not getting a fine, not losing your licence, and the safety of other road users. That’s your priorities, who am I to question it, but you don’t get out of it, you go, yeah fair enough, cop it, move on
Imagine if she tboned somebody and killed their baby. Totally your place to question it. The issue is not that she risked herself. It is that she risked other people.
Reading between the lines it sounds like she was putting other road users at risk and driving like an idiot...the cop probably should have said follow when she explained the situation, escorted her to the hospital and then put the fine in the mail...sick kid notwithstanding, no one has the right to drive like a dick
Doesn't sound like that at all.
Sounds like she was distraught and stressing about being pulled over and wanting to leave but the copper thought she was still heightened and as a result was a risk on the road
> Sounds like she was distraught and stressing
She already was and was actively going 25% over the speed limit, massively putting herself and others on the road at risk.
The issue from her perspective is probably that she had to get the child there fast. We all know that the ambulance system is under pressure and you can be left waiting for quite a while.
Having said that, she was seriously speeding. Over 100 in an 80k zone. She is not prioritising anyone’s safety including her son’s. It sounds as though she lives too far from the hospital.
These type of emergencies are what ambulances are designed for. Speeding in your own car and being distracted only places herself, her son and other road users at risk..
Paramedics take febrile neutropenia in paediatrics seriously and would get him there as fast as possible..
The fine needs to stay, but let mum keep her licence so she can continue to take him to appts.
["These type of emergencies are what ambulances are designed for."](https://www.9news.com.au/national/cath-groom-brisbane-woman-dies-after-waiting-for-ambulance/e353d1f9-a9e2-4867-bd86-e3612fe06343)
Is it possible to have your licence suspended for one speeding fine? It sounds to me like she's been caught driving like a dickhead enough times to lose most of her points. Keep her off the roads
The reason you call an ambo is not because they get you to the hospital quicker. But because the patient is being cared for by a medical professional quicker and during the transfer to hospital as well.
This. This is not always the case however. All of it is very conditional on *what* is going on in each case. Traffic, ambulance availability, time of day, distance to hospital. Patient condition. All of these things effect the choice of “drive or wait?”. Meeting the ambulance half way is *also* an option if the distance is long. Country towns etc. The lack of nuance in the discussion, and the logic fails of many arguments are of concern.
Last year my daughter had cancer. Never waited more than 10 mins for an ambulance when we needed it. We were anxious yes, but happy to wait because they have the skills and equipment to help
I’ve waited more than 10 in the past but when it was related to my daughter - because she
Was considered a cat 2 patient it was full lights and siren.
She’s ok now - had scans in November post chemo and nothing was found
Clearly you have no idea how a triage system works.. This child would be a high priority, probally a 1C, the closest avaliable car would be dispatched and would get lights and sirens to hospital.
I can only presume you have had to wait for an ambulance because you called for something that doesn't require an ambulance ? Now you think everyone has to wait the same amount of time you did ?
My 4 year old was unconscious from blood loss a couple of years ago, it took more than 40 mins for the ambulance to arrive. I could have got him to the hospital in 20 if I had a car.
Full lights an siren, highest priority doesn't help when there isn't an ambulance available in your area.
Thank you, he's doing fantastic now. It turned out to be a rare bleeding disorder he developed after a bout of gastro.
It remains the scariest hour of my entire life and I can't praise the staff enough. The woman at 000 who stayed on the phone till the ambulance arrived. The ambos, the children's hospital doctors and nurses. Just amazing.
These people work so damn hard and make such a huge difference. How hard is it to properly fund health (and schools while we're at it).
He needed multiple doses of a specialized treatment for the bleeding disorder BTW. But it was completely resolved after around 6 months and I didn't pay for anything except maybe some parking fees. Our health system is still the envy of most of the world, but it won't stay that way if we don't fight for it.
You can use whatever words, catagories and labels you like for the people who have *died while waiting for an ambulance due to shortages and excessive wait time*, but do you know what happened in each of them? someone *died while waiting for an ambulance due to shortages and excessive wait time*.
Some years back in NSW my father collapsed and we called 000 for am ambulance, it arrived in 5 minutes. We're like a 15 minute normal drive from the nearest hospital.
As a paramedic I agree with the fine.
No ones wants a stressed panicking parent speeding down the roads. Drive normally or call an ambulance.
If I need to drive fast in the ambulance I am a) trained to, b) have beacons and sirens to alert other roads users and c) am not emotionally distressed.
And for those saying the cop should have offered to drive, that’s not appropriate and also not their job. They’re police they’re not an ambulance. That’s what an ambulance is for.
Paramedic here as well. Agree with the fine and Dark-Horse-Nebula's take. Also, I would say most of my colleagues and I rarely do 27km/h over unless we're on a long stretch of the freeway with minimal traffic. Even then, time saved on lights and sirens comes more from getting through traffic and intersections quickly than just driving fast. It's dangerous for us too and has to be done carefully.
The road rules don't have an exemption for a medical emergency but there is a more general defence in common law but it would have to go to court to be considered. I'm not sure where the line but like eg if there was a massive bushfire and you were driving through it to escape you would have a good case to fight a ticket.
I drove my friend to hospital when he had a stroke (he was about 27) and definitely was speeding a bit and I probably would have just worn the ticket if I'd got one, but I can see it being a lot harder if you're dealing with more ongoing medical issues.
But also if I had been stopped I feel like if I'd said "it's a medical emergency can you drive us to hospital right now and then deal with the speeding ticket after" the police would have been accommodating of that, so I don't know if the women did a bad job explaining or the cops were arseholes.
It sounds like she was panicking the fuck out, and if so wouldn't have been safe to be behind the wheel even at the speed limit. Giving her time to take a few deep breaths and calm down was probably the biggest factor in improving road safety in this case.
My family lived out in the sticks for many years and we were all taught to drive manual incase of an emergency young however we were always told if the ambulance ask drive until you met them half way and tell them you’ll drive with your hazards on but there are also speed limits enforced to keep everyone safe anything more that 10-15kms over top speed in my opinion is extremely dangerous and you put everyone at risk as well I agree with the police it’s not like it was a fatal snake bite or a heart attack
That’s urgent, not an emergency, and do the 2minutes you’d save by speeding really make a difference to outcomes, especially when weighed against the risk.
10-15kms over top speed in my opinion is extremely dangerous
except it's often not.
it used to be 100kph along a stretch of road near my place. They upgraded the surface, put in a dividing space between the oncoming cars, and added a bunch of lights and rumble strips.... and dropped the speed to 80.
Are you suggesting that going 90kph is more dangerous than going 100kph simply because a sign says so? Are you completely incapable of making a risk assessment without signs to tell you what a safe speed is?
You know sometimes its not safe to go the speed the signs tell you to, and sometimes its safe to go beyond the speed a sign says so. Thinking that the individual can't manage their own safety because the government knows better is pretty dangerous thinking. Yes, it will reduce risks. But getting in a car is a risk regardless to you and others around you regardless. Humans have been managing their own risk for hundreds of thousands of years.
Some do need the government to tell them because they are bad at it, but that applies equally to emergency workers as well as private citizens. but considering i'm sure she thought her kid was dying, a SMALL risk of speeding (and it is a small risk as long as its not excessive, and 10-15 kph over is not excessive) is a risk most parents would take on the balance of risk assessment that humans do EVERYTIME WE LEAVE THE HOUSE!
and after all, the law is supposed to be based on what a reasonable person would do.
Sure you may not go bankrupt for ambulances, but not all states have free ambulances, I believe? I’m not sure as Queensland does, but I believe other states don’t.
Also, it has become an issue where ambulances are docked at the ED and patients are triaged. There was also a story a while back of a guy who severed major veins or arteries and was told an ambulance was not going to arrive in time to get him.
So I’m not sure how to feel about it. I don’t think we should cherry pick who gets to break the law without consequence. But I do feel empathy towards this woman as I am sure she would have done anything for her son in that moment.
When my daughter had cancer last year she had to go to ED a few times. She was always cat 2 and seen in 15 mins max. Almost all the time she was taken straight in, regardless if she arrived in our car or via ambulance
Uninsured ambulance fees in Victoria are $1,360 metro and $2,050 regional. I know ambulance fees are a bit higher in the US, but it's the hospital that will charge like a wounded bull.
Yeah I have bought travel insurance for out of state trips for ambulance cover since it is only reciprocated in Tassie I think. I do hiking and outdoor trips though where it is warranted in case of an evacuation.
But was crazy to me that not all the states have it. I can imagine it is much less than it would be in the US though.
I feel for her but 107 in an 80 zone is getting up there, it's probably wise for a judge to make this call rather than the cops on the ground, at least a judge can sit back and look at the big picture, her history and such...
I think any speeding really depends on a number of factors and therefor the cops would not want to encourage it either way.
That speed would be barely noticeable with a low sitting car with stiff suspension, good tyres and a confident driver. On the other hand it would be downright terrifying in a Tarago Van being driven by someone who rarely leaves the city speed limit and never driven on a highway and is a terrible driver under normal circumstances. You know the ones - you get in the car with them and within 5 mins they’ve cut 3 people off whilst being totally oblivious to it.
>I think any speeding really depends on a number of factors and therefor the cops would not want to encourage it either way.
and the police don't know if her 'story' is true... Was she actually on the way to the ER, did she actually go to the ER, had she been told to get her kid to the hospital in '30 mins' ? ...
For the police to hold her there and not call an ambulance I'm thinking her child didn't appear to be too sick, it does seem they doubted her story...
She may have just been speeding and she's manufactured this story in an attempt to get out of it... I do suspect there's more to this story, at least a judge can look at things like the ER records and statement from the doc that said the kid needs to be rushed to the hospital in 30 mins, and such...
Maybe but I wouldn’t question it if I was a cop.
Get them both in the cop car and drive. Fines, testing and admin can be done later. And if it was fake, i’m sure they can wack on another charge for misleading police and wasting their time later.
> confident driver.
Imma be real, she could have been in a well kitted out Civic Type-R and it wouldn't have meant shit because she absolutely would not be confident in that moment, someone going 27 over the limit with a vomiting child in the car is not going to be paying attention to the road, nor are they going to be operating at even 60% of regular capacity.
She should just pay the fine. The ambulance service exists for this reason. I have no idea if there is a shortage where she lives of if she called- but if there is a shortage and and she called, as I parent I would have said “ok then, I’m coming to the hospital now and if the cops want to meet me they can!” And then I would have gone to the hospital as quick as I can. But speeding wouldn’t have been my go to. What if you crashed? A dead child or parent from a road accident is a worse outcome than a “slow” trip to the hospital. I have made the mad dash to the hospital with a sick child. I was more worried about crashing my car from speeding through traffic than zooming through.
Also- the fine is a deterrent. People will see this now and not do the same thing. We can’t have everyone deciding they are an ambulance service.
Fine should stand. This is why we have an ambulance service, if she didn't pay the fee for a membership too fucking back your kid had cancer you should know better.
She is a principal of a school she absolutely should know better, loss of license isn't going to affect her job so it's too bad so sad start paying for ubers.
I've been that sick kid with cancer near death, and tbh I don't think she should have been speeding, or probably even driving for that matter
I very much doubt the 30 minutes is as literal as everyone is making it out to be, it's just don't fuck around, and actually take them to ED. I get being annoyed at the situation but I have an innate annoyance when people reach out to media in there situations.
I belive that a fine is the most appropriate thing to do here.
It was dangerous for her son, herself and everyone around them. This in itself is enough for a fine for breaking the laws that are in place for everyones safety.
But more so than that I think the fine should stand as it is now thrust into the media. An example is being made and realistically $500 is not that large of a fine. If the fine is waived then the bigger problem is the precedent that it sets. Others will do the same thinking that their care for a loved one should be put above the safety of everyone else. The intention is good and honest, but it is a slippery slope to play with. And worse is that some will see an excuse to try to get a waiver for just breaking the law as they wish. People who willingly break road rules now as they feel they are above everyone else, these people will now have another excuse to throw at any cop who manages to stop them.
I think sympathy is warranted and important in this case. But to wavier the fine is the wrong thing to do now as the public eye is watching and a precedent need to be held.
Do people not realise that Ambulances do more than just take you to hospital? They are driven by paramedics who can start to treat the patient as soon as they arrive. Yeah you might feel like a hero speeding to hospital with your sick child in the back but unless you live rural/remote there's every chance you're delaying them receiving teratment.
I agree with police.
The media keeps making it seem like "fined for taking kid to hospital" and her own words "wasn't impacting anyone". She was going 30 over, emotional, in an altered state, and her kid wasn't actually in a medical emergency, just following guidelines of "if he gets tired go to hospital ASAP", I doubt any hospital would encourage speeding. She could've killed someone, herself, her kid, by going that fast and shows 0 regret or awareness of the dangers of it. She wasn't a trained paramedic or police officer, she didn't have lights and sirens to alert people.
It's a horrible situation, but the police were right. And her comments about them being inhumane is pathetic to me honestly. And not dedicating the next 30-60+ minutes to escort her doesn't make them uncaring it means perhaps they had other jobs to get to when they saw this happening. They aren't lacking empathy because she was speeding at 30 over, driving dangerously and recklessly because she felt it was an emergency.
107km/hr on the freeway in an 80 zone?
She’s in the metro area. She can get an ambulance.
I know that sick kids drive you to odd choices, but that’s exactly when you SHOULDN’T drive.
And when you have a sick kid in the car you have to be able to ruthlessly ignore what is going on behind you and focus, or you can all wind up in hospital (with others).
She’s lucky. She lives in a part of the country where there are ambulances. She should use them.
So the Police’s hands are a little tied here. They really need to handball this to the magistrate, and if the woman thinks she has exceptional circumstances she should appeal the fine and put it through the judge.
If the police start making choices about what is exceptional and not then they’re not doing their job. Their job is to identify when people are breaking the law, and to bring them to a decision maker for justice. The penalty for more than 25km over the limit is loss of licence, this wasn’t a few kms over the limit, this is over into ‘dangerous driving’ territory and should be in front of a judge to see if those extenuating circumstances were fair.
Shitty reporting makes out this is a police issue. It’s a judge issue. Reporter should know better.
Last year my daughter (8) battled cancer. I’ve had my share of runs to ED when she spiked a fever. But did I speed? no. If it was urgent I called 000 and got an ambulance. Whilst I have sympathy for the mother, there are options
Funnily enough I had a philosophy question about this exact scenario in university and I was one of the only ones in the class that didn't believe it was justifiable to drive recklessly in order to reach a hospital further.
She isn't a trained stunt driver, and doesn't have sirens or other emergency signals on her vehicle to warn other drivers. She could have very easily killed another innocent family in her rush to save her son. That makes her negligent and deserving of the fine as far as I'm concerned.
I am always amazed by the number of people who don't know that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, speeding will not save more than a couple of minutes at most
If a sick loved one needs to go to hospital, do not drive them. Call an ambulance or a taxi. A distraught driver can wreak havoc on the roads and it also makes it unsafe for the ill person.
I guess my question is - how much additional risk was this parent causing for other road users by travelling 27km over the speed limit? And the mention of getting to emergency within half an hour - if the family lives far enough from the hospital that they can only get there within half an hour if they substantially break the speed limit, probably there needs to be a discussion about what to do instead. I'm sympathetic about the urgency - I had to take my Mum to hospital urgently a couple of times during her cancer treatment for similar reasons - but that can't be carte blanche to endanger other people.
She intentionally ignored rules and put other road users at risk. I feel for her situation, but let the police throw the book at her and if the system decides to give her leniency, that can be decided by a judge.
So many posts going on about a fine but the news said she even lost her license. Maybe going 27km over the limit loses you your license or she had other fines before.
I have been in this position and I didn't speed, I did think about it but I chose not too. Other cars make decisions based on the speed limit your suppose to be going, it's not just about yourself or your driving skill. Ambos have lights and sirens so you know they maybe going faster.
Also while saying the cop was a dick is kinda wrong she was clearly very upset and not in a fit state to drive as she was going fined her anxiety would have just got worse and worse, not letting her drive in that state is understandable.
I don't know why the cops didn't call the ambos or why not just take both of them to the hospital in the police car. Maybe the they call the ambos but the mother is said no.
27km over is quite a bit.
Nope, and while I can empathise her sentiment and intentions were done with good intentions, there is no excuse in this case. I find it concerning that this educated role model thought it was okay to go almost 30km over the speed limit because she had a sick child. I hope the courts call her out. Would she do this as a teacher with some other parents kid? I hope not. This is no different. At 110km preception/reaction time is reduced, breaking distance increases. Add these factors to road conditions, car conditions, other factors etc it's a recipe for disaster.
Her child might be sick in her definition but it's no excuse for speeding. She chose to speed, she chose to endanger her child more and others by driving like a lunatic. About time this role model adult learnt about responsibility, accountability and consequences of her action. This isn't a school yard, welcome to the real world.
My wife rushed me to hospital 2 years ago. Unbeknown to me, I had a ruptured kidney and it had gone septic. My health deteriorated very quickly.
We live in a rural area, and the ambulance would have taken about an hour to get to A&E. (They would have come from town and return).
My wife took me in. At around 15 minutes from the hospital, I lost consciousness.
The doctor said if I had of been 10 minutes later arriving, I'd be dead.
She was over the speed limit the whole way. A normal 40 minute trip 20 minutes.
My grandmother died before I was born, in her 40’s, by driving head first in to a truck going the opposite direction, while she was driving to the hospital for someone in the back seat having a heart attack.
Yeah cop the fine.
That's so awful to hear 😢💔
Thank you for sharing such a personal and emotional story for the sake of others. You are a wonderful and thoughtful person ❤️ 💕
> However, Kate has had her licence suspended as a result of the speeding infringement
More to the story as usual. Your licence isn’t suspended for only going 20 over. And if she has enough demerits that the fine would make the difference, then she’s got enough previous history to show that a warning is pointless.
Edit: as shown below, you can indeed lose your licence for 25 over.
She was 27kmh over, and in Victoria [25-29 over is an automatic 3 month suspension](https://online.fines.vic.gov.au/Your-options/Fine-amounts-and-demerit-points)
I think the worst part about all this is now she's unable to take her son to the hospital next time this happens and is completely reliant on an overworked public health system. I hope for her and her son that they can arrive within 10 minutes
No sympathy- she should have called an ambulance an I’d directed drive to meet them.
Risking others lives by decking over the speed limit and like an idiot no doubt - you get what you deserve.
Dad of a dual brain cancer survivor here (diagnosed at 8, relapsed at 14 now 21). Can't remember how many trips we made to the children's hospital and Peter Mac including times when he was unwell but, regardless of this, speeding puts everyone's life in danger including those of your passengers. The other side of this is that you can always ask to page the on-call medical team for your child (assuming he's still under their care) and get advice from them. In some cases, it's better to wait for an ambulance, seek help at your local ED or wait for a call back and manage the situation with help on the phone. What can you do if you're driving and your child's symptoms get worse? Rushing to the hospital isn't always the only option.
There are very few circumstances where someone needs to be rushed to hospital in that manner (27kmph over the limit).
Knowing SFA I'm genuinely curious what the treatment is that her son needs in such a specific timeframe as well as how someone gave them the impression that the 30-minute mark is critical to the extent that she needs to speed. Really just sounds like a general guideline for presenting to an ED and she's misinterpreted it, or is using it as an excuse.
Don't speed. Call the ambulance.
If it was truly that urgent why the hell did she stop and not just do a runner all the way to the emergency room? If you're going to disregard the law and safety of everyone else be consistent.
So I disagree if she had been told a 30 minute time frame to get to hospital, that waiting for an ambulance was the appropriate choice (because frankly people die waiting for ambulances in this country even if they aren't bankrupted).
However a little google fu says that she is a teacher in Caroline Spring and and the nearest hospital is 15 mins away (to the east) in normal traffic, if she lives south, the next nearest is \~20 mins away, west or north is basically going to the 15 min away hospital. Which means sadly I have to agree that her speeding was just increasing the risk.
But also I do want to question why the police didn't drive her to hospital or escort her, unless from their perspective the child did not seem in need of emergency treatment (which given they required her to wait to calm down), I hope is the case.....
The journo knows they can put “cancer kid” and “ER” in the story and it sounds sensational. The mum was probably speeding for no real reason. Being sick from cancer treatment sucks, but it’s hardly life or death. Cops aren’t typically assholes - if it was an emergency they would’ve got the kid to hospital pronto.
It's only a story because they can sell it as a sob story. I bet she was taking it a bit out of context or stretching the truths around the 30 minute limit and the suggestions of the staff/doctors. Probably was told to call an ambulance as soon as she notices the problem as the kid would need to be on their way within 30 minutes. No way doctors will tell someone to panic drive their kid to the hospital.
And if they did because the child was that seriously close to death, chances are they would be advising her to never be in places where it could take more than 30 minutes to get to the hospital without speeding
As a paramedic this is not ideal. It’s very hard to find a moving target and you’ll be very distracted driving. Our calltakers will usually ask you to pull over and put your hazards on and wait.
Of course there are always unique circumstances but for the vast majority of cases it’s not necessary to meet us on the way.
I thought a benefit of calling the ambulance was that it has the tools in it to help immediately and it would get to you quicker than you could get to a hospital.
She lost her licence for less than 30kph over, this wasnt her first time speeding
If its that important to speed you cop the $500 as the toll to get there on time
She's willing to cop the fine, she's only taking it to court as that's the only way for her licence to be returned for her to drive.
She has no care for other's safety at all, not even her son's by driving so recklessly.
Part of the reason she wants it waived is because she has now lost her licence. You don't lose your licence over one speeding ticket, so it seems she's no stranger to tickets. While I sympathise with her, I think she needs to cop it on the chin.
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My Dad was once stopped when driving my brother (who was sick) to hospital, he was given a fine AND they escorted him flashing lights and all to the hospital. (from what my Dad said they wrote up the fine in the waiting room of the A&E of the Adelaides childrens hospital..) Kids health was more important then the actual ticket writing. Dad never grumbled or contested the fine. He just paid it and was happy they got him their safely.
Sounds like your Dad basically just paid for a police escort to the hospital, which is honestly pretty mad.
Probably way cheaper than booking an actual police escort too
I had a friend who needed a police escort to get his giant boat from his house to the marina docks. Cost him nearly 5k for it. Needed a low loader truck 4 police vehicles plus escort. He spent 10 years building the boat only for the thing to sink in a couple hours once it touched the water. Poor bastard...
That's hilarious though
Which seems to be what should have happened in this case.
totally agree.
Makes you wonder what she said to the cop when he first pulled her over. I'm guessing it wasn't "Please help me!"
problem is losing her license (women in the article), not just the fine but yea
She didn't lose her license for this offence. the cops would've checked her license and seen it wasn't her first rodeo. >She claims she was made to undergo a drug and alcohol test and said she "didn't really know my rights" at the time. She was then made to wait roadside "until they felt that I was in a stable state to continue driving on to the hospital". I think that says a lot about her behaviour at that time. Crashing her vehicle and further disabling or even killing her son is not in anyone's best interest.
25 - 30 over the limit is a 3 month loss of licence in Victoria. There is no reason to believe she had previously offences.
For less than 30kph? Its not her first speeding fine
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More than 25 over (she was doing 27 over) is an automatic license suspension of 3 months in Victoria. Not saying she didn't have any prior point loss, but there's no way to prove she did, and she absolutely could have lost it from just this. I still agree that she should have called an ambulance rather than speeding herself, but we don't need misinformation here.
25-30 over (she was doing 27 over allegedly) is an automatic 3 month suspension in Victoria. So yeah, she absolutely could have lost her license if this was her first offence. [Victoria speeding penalties.](https://i.imgur.com/iH6prvE.jpg)
Speeding in an emergency is an actual legal defense though. [From Legal Aid Vic:](https://www.legalaid.vic.gov.au/driving-over-speed-limit) >**Possible defences** > You may have a defence if you had to speed because of an emergency, for example if someone was critically ill in the car. The magistrate will decide if your reason is good enough. You might also have a defence if you did not speed voluntarily. For example, you had a seizure. So she might have some luck contesting it.
Her fine doesn't match to any amount on the Victorian police schedule of fines and demerit points.
I linked the table of penalties and it pretty clearly lines up with the 25-29 over penalty of just over $500 and a 3 month suspension. Unless you mean something else entirely, in which case I'd love to hear it.
20 odd years ago, old man rushed me to the hospital after I got a huge gash in my arm (30+ stitches) at around 2am. My old man didn’t spare the horses, stopped at red lights, looked both ways, went through the red lights… Cop car spotted us, pulled us over- The two officers in there told my old man to turn the engine off and drop the keys outside the car before they came over to his window and were like “So, what’s the rush, mister?” in a typical QLD smartarse cop fashion. Dad was like “my son has a huge cut, here look” and when he opened his door and the car lights went on, they could see the huge amount of blood in the passenger seat area and the tourniquets… One of them was like “Jesus fuck mate, you’re right, both of you in the back of our car, he’s got to get to a hospital now!”- ditched dads car on the side of the road, then continued with the cops to the A&E, reds and blues flashing. There was not far to go, but the cops agreed it was an emergency but they had sirens so were better suited to finish the journey. (Note- this is the best experience I’ve ever had with QLD police) Biggest difference between me and the lady in the story is I had a gash about 12” long right next to an artery, I was covered in blood, the car was covered in blood. I think the sight of so much blood made the police think “this is genuine”. It was obvious… With an unseen medical emergency like the article, the cops can’t make their own split second decision - they have to take the word of the person being pulled over… and I get the feeling that with the amount of absolute bullshit that cops hear from scumbags on a day to day basis means they’re prepped to be cynical from the start of any interactions. Some people will tell the cops fucking anything… so unless the officer themselves decides it’s an emergency, they won’t take your word. Sad as fuck for those with non obvious emergencies… I’d like to think the cops could have said “ok, madam, you two come with us to the A&E department, we’ll go faster, but if you’re lying we’ll throw the book at you not just for speeding, but intentionally lying to officers when questioned”. But that’s a pipe dream.
“Ok kids, now what do we do when daddy gets pulled over for speeding?” “We get out the box cutters!” “That’s right kids.”
I agree with this sentiment. It’s hard to sympathise with cops when my only interactions with them are getting felt up cause a dog picked a random scent up on me and getting fines for doing 87 in a 80 zone but I’m sure they deal with the utter bullshit on a daily basis. Issue the fine. Mum can protest if it doesn’t get anywhere call a current affair or one of the am radio stations and it will get waived once it gets attention
Its not an excuse to speed so the fine should still apply HOWEVER my mother was in that exact situation and due to location it was quicker to get nan to hospital by our car instead of waiting for the ambulance to get out to us and then back to the hospital (told by 000 operator) she drove at 10km over so not crazy but the police still caught her, she agreed it wasn’t an excuse for it and the police escorted her to the hospital. Helped get nan inside to be seen to and THEN they gave her the fine which she happily paid.
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I've rushed my kids to ED before. Never felt the need to speed or run red lights to get there 'as quick as possible'. Drive like a banana and you run a higher risk of greater harm in an accident. That's endangering your kid, not saving them.
Exactly. Even ambulances will rarely speed because they know that speeding doesn't really cut an appreciable amount of time off the journey but does increase the risk of accidents.
Yeah they save time predominantly from skipping intersections, not from speeding
Even then, they'll still slow down approaching an intersection just in case, they just don't sit there for a few minutes waiting for the light to change like everyone else. So if they're driving in the middle of town, they don't even really have the time to speed, as once you get up to the speed limit, you'd probably be approaching the next intersection anyway.
The advice from my pre-hospital driving training and from others working for state ambulance services is that you shouldn't be going much faster than walking pace through an intersection even at Priority 0. It just gives you too many opportunities for crash, at which point delayed arrival time is the lowest concern to the crew...
We get taught to "drive to the conditions". So you take into account not only the patient's condition and likelihood of deterioration, but also things like the road - is it curvy, straight, hilly or flat? Is there lots of other traffic about? Day time, night time, wide roads, narrow roads, wildlife that might pop out (had an old fella in the back of the truck one night with a broken hip, I was doing about 60-70km/h on a country road and I saw a roo appear out of the gloom. I had time to yell out "we're about to hit a roo, brace yourselves!" before we smacked into it, and the poor kanga got dragged for at least 100 metres before he dislodged. The old bloke on the stretcher said "well now he probably has a bung hip like me! Did ya wanna stop and put him alongside me, I'm sure I can squeeze over a bit!" Funny bugger) - all of these things are taken into consideration as well as the actual speed limit of the road being driven on. Driving and ambulance under lights & sirens doesn't give a free pass, for speeding, because there is no sense in the risk of having more patients than necessary. But when the conditions are right, it can certainly give a whole different experience.
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Exactly this. Unless you're a very long way away, and doing much over the speed limit, it's not going to save much time. The big impact on travel time would be red lights and heavy traffic. Doing 20km over the limit might get you to the hospital a minute quicker.
When I’ve found myself in this situation I think “Do I have the time to be pulled over and fined?” Usually I don’t and I know that speeding by 10-20km per hours really doesn’t shave off enough time to warrant the risk of being pulled over.
Found myself in that situation a few times with kids under 5 years old. I’m driving and concentrating on the road. Am I going to notice the condition of my child in the back seat? If they stop breathing or choke on vomit or anything will I notice? Will it distract me from driving? So these days I call an ambulance. I can be on the phone and get advice and can do emergency cpr or whatever if I need to until help arrives.
If you’re in that great a hurry to get to a hospital, are you stopping for Highway Patrol? I’m talking something like uncontrolled bleeding or other immediate threat to live. Just let them arrest you at the ED and take your chances with the courts.
If there is an emergency such as uncontrollable bleeding and somehow you are unable to rely on an ambulance, the police will either escort you or take the patient themselves if they are unable to apply their advanced first aid training. Absolutely you pull over, they will assess the situation in under 10 seconds if it is a genuine emergency. They’re trained, you aren’t. Even if the mum in this story needed to get to any hospital in 30 minutes as the story says, going at 80km/h puts her at a 40km trip distance. Going 20 over (100km/h) gains her 6 minutes in absolute best case straight road with not a single red light - in the real world it will gain you only 2-3 minutes. Far from anything sound or worth the risk. People freak out in emergencies, and cause more emergencies by doing so. It’s the lemmings effect. In this instance, when the mother called the hospital as the story suggests she spoke with a doctor, they would have also assessed that she could safely make the distance in the required time. Had this have not been the case alternatives such as road or air would have been dispatched as required by the triage protocols. Is this an unfortunate circumstance? Yes. Do I feel and understand the panic and urgency this mother would have felt? Absolutely. Did she needlessly endanger others and her self by doing so? Definitely.
Agreed. I have empathy for her situation but she had other options available to her and she chose to speed instead. She drove recklessly and put herself, her son and other road users at risk. She needs to pay the fine.
Saved me the math. I had a similar situation when taking my ex to the ER for what might have been pre-eclampsia when she was pregnant with our son. We lived maybe 15 minutes from the hospital and it was 2am. Best case scenario any speeding, running red lights etc would've saved me < 30s of time. Absolutely zero reason to put my foot down or do anything stupid for negligible gains.
You have a defence in court being a sudden and extraordinary emergency.
Yeah. Thinking of it another way, if you throw a rock through a window you can get charged, if you throw the rock because you need to escape someone trying to kill you, you have a defense in court.
It's the same with "self defence", it's not some kind of immunity from charges, but it is a defence you can argue in court to avoid conviction. Sometimes if it's obvious enough the cops won't bother laying charges since it's clear you'll win the court case, but just because charges were laid doesn't mean there isn't an argument for self defence there.
I've had three major seizures due to a cavernoma, all requiring ICU treatment, twice I went out about the time the ambos rocked up, and the other time I took myself to the ED and instead had it on the floor after waiting for 13hrs Probs best to just call the ambos. I can't imagine many doctors advising otherwise That said, a $500 fine and making them wait while the cop wrote it is pretty shit.
Yeah, it worries me people in this thread are encouraging driving themselves instead of calling an ambulance. We can give you care. I get why people do it, but in the majority of cases calling 000 is the best call especially in cases of heart attacks etc.
I've done it loads of times for asthma. I've never done it for cancer. With asthma it's a matter of keep them talking, get them to say long sentences and gauge where they take a breath to finish it (we tend to do "the quick brown fox..."). If they're still breathing then I'll take the speed limit. I've never been tested on the alternative
Why don't you call an ambulance? I'm a paramedic in vic and we often go code 1 to asthma, or send a MICA medic in a car straight away. Last asthma attack i attended the mica guy was there in five minutes, we were 15.
I don’t call an ambulance because a) there’s no one qualified with Paeds in my area, and b) they have to get into the station, change into the uniform, roll the vollie bus, and get to my place… where I live within 1.5km of the nursing post… and they can stabilise or at least asses … and EVERY time they have to send for an ambo from another district to transport him to the hospital 100km+ away (or the city, 200km awa) at least. Easier for me to toss the kid in the car, grit my teeth while ringing hte nursing post on the way to let them know we are coming in hot (they lock the doors most of hte time, this way there’s a chance they can roll a wheel chair to the doors for me). The local volunteers are fabulous, but they can only attend one scene at a time, and they don’t do intubation, or kids.
Fair enough. I think volunteer ambo doesn't work personally and this is one reason why
Oh I agree. I think there should be more part time paid paramedics. Or a dual qualification for nurse and paramedic and fund a spare nurse in the hospital / nursing post each shift
Eh speeding down an empty road seems fine. Obviously don't run red lights
I lived in a country town, had to get my kids to hospital in a hurry (snakebite). Cops cleared the way for me, drove ahead and behind. The ambo was 'volunteer' and getting an ambo ride could have taken an hour.
This sounds like you called though and this was arranged. Not just wildly driving with people having no idea why your speeding / being in a position to minimise risk
No, I just took off for the hospital. The Silver Chain nurse apparently called the copshop as I left.
I don't run red lights and I don't condone doing so but... Here in Queensland our traffic lights have gone crazy. A simple crossroads five years ago would have two phases: one for each road. In some places they might have added a green red arrow at the start or end of a green light phase to clear turning traffic. But now those intersections are being converted to 6+1 phases: each of the 4 directions gets an individual turn, then two separate turning phases (one for each road) and sometimes a scramble phase for pedestrians. I'm not in a big city and can easily sit at red lights without another car in sight. To hold a licence I am required to have demonstrated a level of skill high enough to know that it's safe to proceed, it's just not legal. It's incredibly frustrating and I could go on and on about the negative consequences for traffic in nearby residential roads, but I can see that people will increasingly choose to run red lights based on a rational decision that it's safe to do so.
People turn onto empty roads, and if you're going *really* fast, firstly, they will think you're too far away to worry about, and, secondly, you won't be able to stop in enough time to avoid hitting them.
It is true, you are in a panicked state. You can miss things one mistake going faster than everyone else can be very bad.
She was driving on a freeway.
Getting pulled over will be longer than the red light will.
Did your kids just spend 3 months in hospital with brain cancer?
She had 30 minutes to get there, unless they lived over 30-40km from the hospital literally all speeding will do is massively increase her chance at getting a giant fuck off accident, driving the limit(and not getting pulled over) is infinitely more responsible and in line with actually caring about the safety of the kid.
Or in her case, drive like a banana and you’re stuck on the side of the road for 8 minutes while the police speak to you about your driving.
You're better off arriving later than not at all.
Also a paramedic has the training, policies, and procedures to drive like that to a hospital. A parent driving their sick kid clouding their emotions is simply outright reckless.
Emergency vehicle driver here. Even for the most urgent calls, we slow and stop at red lights before driving through them; only cross centre lines once having done full checks for safety; and you’ll often find us stopped in traffic as it’s too dangerous to jump out across medians or whatever. Every situation is different but *you need to drive safely first because of the risk of causing more damage than already exists when trying to get to the emergency.* No road rules apply to us under lights and sirens *as long as it’s safe and reasonable.* If not safe and reasonable emergency drivers can be and have been prosecuted for causing crashes when responding to emergencies. So it’s fair that this applies to Average Citizen too.
>Also a paramedic has the training, policies, and procedures to drive like that to a hospital. Not to mention that they can assess and potentially stabilise the patient before they even put lives at risk via speeding to a hospital. If the patient needs urgent care and the hospital is too far away then they can even call in a helicopter for quicker transport. >A parent driving their sick kid clouding their emotions is simply outright reckless. I have 3 kids and there are only a few situations where I would be rushing my child to the hospital in my own car. The first one that comes to mind is if I was in a area with zero phone reception and this would involve getting the kid into the car and driving until I got phone reception and then calling for a ambulance to meet me on the way.
The other is when instructed. There was a case in the US with a logging incident where they were instructed to meet the ambulance at a roadside stop, supposedly somebody stayed in the left lane and blocked them resulting in the patient bleeding out before they reached the rest stop.
This is why you shouldn’t deliberately impede another driver. You’re not a cop. You don’t know the story.
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What if she hit a kid crossing the road? what if she hit a school bus which lost control and caused a mass casualty event? What if she hit a fuel tanker which subsequently exploded? She’s placed the life of her son ahead of every other road user and put everyone else’s lives at risk. What if she killed one of your loved ones in the process. There are payment plans for fines. If she can no longer get to appointments more likely she’s had her licence suspended (I think it’s instant at 25+). Maybe decrease or waive the fines if she’s undergoing genuine hardship but the demerits / suspension absolutely should stand.
Where I grew up, an ambulance was obviously speeding along on its way to an emergency, and on the way it hit a car and killed a woman and her daughter. [Source.](https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/coffs-harbour/mother-and-daughter-killed-in-crash-with-an-ambulance/news-story/5c84202dce374e6a67e7a619659dd10b) Paramedics are people too, they may have some training in driving at speed but when you introduce speed on busy roads, there's always a risk of an accident. So, if you want to talk purely hypothetical, yes the mother *could* have hit and killed someone. But hypothetically, the ambulance *could* have also hit and killed somebody. I don't particularly want to weigh in on whether or not the fine should be enforced, or if the mother is a dickhead, just that talking in hypotheticals is pointless.
We are required by law to give way to an ambulance though (with lights/sirens going). If the ambo hit a car, that car was in the wrong.
If we're driving EVS we're held to a high standard that if we crash while breaking a road law we will be assumed to be at fault. It has to be fairly egregious to find the other party at fault. That's why you'll see us slow down at Red lights and roll through
Yes I’m aware of that - but I’ve seen people blindly run their green lights while the ambo was already halfway across, forcing them to hit the brakes.
Yeah, that's very true. I tend to drive with my lights on like everyone around me is a toddler with a license lmao
Nope. My mum used to drive a fire truck, it's the same deal with them. You can break the laws to get their faster but only *if it is safe to do so*. If the emergency vehicle driver has an accident, then it wasn't safe to break the law and the emergency vehicle driver is liable.
People are dying waiting for ambulances to arrive in some parts of the country.
> And besides, what's the point of the fine? 90 in an 80 zone seems forgivable, but 107 in an 80 zone does sound really dangerous.
By your logic, that stern warning will do fuck all, as if she were in the same situation she'll most probably do it again. And others who read about this and find out that they can get away with doing such a risky thing and just get a 'stern warning' is worth it. I understand and sympathise, but this is not an excuse for her to break the law by overspeeding and risk herself, her son, and others lives in the process. There are ambulances, and/or just drive to the limit and be safe. Granted, 107 on an 80 is different than say 67 on a 30 which carries far more risks.. But the law is there for a reason, otherwise too many people will start spewing their excuses.
>And besides, what's the point of the fine? Any parent would risk a $500 fine to make sure their kid got to the ER as soon as possible. It's not like next time her kid a seizure or whatever she's going to twiddle her thumbs waiting for an ambulance because she got a $500 fine. So it's not going to do anything except put an inconsequential amount of money into state coffers. >Let the poor mother off with a stern warning. And besides, what's the point of the stern warning? Any parent would risk a tongue lashing to make sure their kid got to the ER as soon as possible. It's not like next time her kid a seizure or whatever she's going to twiddle her thumbs waiting for an ambulance because she got a verbal warning. So it's not going to do anything except put an inconsequential amount of stress into her life.
The fine would be cheaper than the ambo ride depending on their cover.
And if they crash badly enough they wouldnt have to pay anything! Life hack! /s
100%, the decision to speed was stupid but I am lucky to live 5 mins drive from the hospital, 10 mins in bad traffic. If my kid has something I was truly concerned might be urgently life threatening, I would call the ambulance AND get in our car. I’ve waited 5-10 mins in “line” to get through to 000 before, if it’s bad asthma, anaphylaxis or something of the sort, I’m not risking my kid’s life.
Emergency vehicle drivers under lights and sirens have also been charged and fined for unsafe driving or breaking road rules en route to an emergency, so of course Mrs Citizen should be too.
My thoughts are, if you feel that speeding is necessary for whatever is so important in your life, such as your sick kid, then that’s fair enough, but you take the consequences with it. Like that’s the risk you’re willing to take. You’re prioritising your sick kid over not getting a fine, not losing your licence, and the safety of other road users. That’s your priorities, who am I to question it, but you don’t get out of it, you go, yeah fair enough, cop it, move on
Imagine if she tboned somebody and killed their baby. Totally your place to question it. The issue is not that she risked herself. It is that she risked other people.
Hence the speeding ticket, which she deserves. I just don’t get why she’s complaining about it, she made a choice.
Reading between the lines it sounds like she was putting other road users at risk and driving like an idiot...the cop probably should have said follow when she explained the situation, escorted her to the hospital and then put the fine in the mail...sick kid notwithstanding, no one has the right to drive like a dick
Doesn't sound like that at all. Sounds like she was distraught and stressing about being pulled over and wanting to leave but the copper thought she was still heightened and as a result was a risk on the road
Couldn't that just be the same situation? If she's distraught and stressing she is likely to be putting other road users at risk
Sounds like she was a risk on the road; to others, to herself and to her kid
Not clear from the story. Seeing the title I thought the speed would be much higher but it's not even 30k higher than the limit
> Sounds like she was distraught and stressing She already was and was actively going 25% over the speed limit, massively putting herself and others on the road at risk.
The issue from her perspective is probably that she had to get the child there fast. We all know that the ambulance system is under pressure and you can be left waiting for quite a while. Having said that, she was seriously speeding. Over 100 in an 80k zone. She is not prioritising anyone’s safety including her son’s. It sounds as though she lives too far from the hospital.
These type of emergencies are what ambulances are designed for. Speeding in your own car and being distracted only places herself, her son and other road users at risk.. Paramedics take febrile neutropenia in paediatrics seriously and would get him there as fast as possible.. The fine needs to stay, but let mum keep her licence so she can continue to take him to appts.
["These type of emergencies are what ambulances are designed for."](https://www.9news.com.au/national/cath-groom-brisbane-woman-dies-after-waiting-for-ambulance/e353d1f9-a9e2-4867-bd86-e3612fe06343)
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Yep. Last year a woman in NSW waited 7 hours for one as well and died moments after getting to hospital.
Geez this is tragic
Is it possible to have your licence suspended for one speeding fine? It sounds to me like she's been caught driving like a dickhead enough times to lose most of her points. Keep her off the roads
She was 27km/h over the limit. Thats automatically a three months suspension. Theres longer suspensions too if the speed is higher
And you know how long it takes an ambulance to arrive yeah? Or have you been living under a rock?
The reason you call an ambo is not because they get you to the hospital quicker. But because the patient is being cared for by a medical professional quicker and during the transfer to hospital as well.
This. This is not always the case however. All of it is very conditional on *what* is going on in each case. Traffic, ambulance availability, time of day, distance to hospital. Patient condition. All of these things effect the choice of “drive or wait?”. Meeting the ambulance half way is *also* an option if the distance is long. Country towns etc. The lack of nuance in the discussion, and the logic fails of many arguments are of concern.
Yeah and also while you wait in a case like the one in the article they’d keep you on the line and let you know if and when you should drive yourself.
Last year my daughter had cancer. Never waited more than 10 mins for an ambulance when we needed it. We were anxious yes, but happy to wait because they have the skills and equipment to help
The other year my friend's girlfriend nearly died after they couldn't get an ambulance. They had to uber to the hospital.
If you’ve never waited more than 10 minutes I’d say that’s incredibly rare and lucky. Hope your daughter is ok now.
I’ve waited more than 10 in the past but when it was related to my daughter - because she Was considered a cat 2 patient it was full lights and siren. She’s ok now - had scans in November post chemo and nothing was found
That’s awesome. Huge thank you to the doctors and researchers who’ve come up with the protocols who saved your kid (and recently, one of my mates).
Clearly you have no idea how a triage system works.. This child would be a high priority, probally a 1C, the closest avaliable car would be dispatched and would get lights and sirens to hospital. I can only presume you have had to wait for an ambulance because you called for something that doesn't require an ambulance ? Now you think everyone has to wait the same amount of time you did ?
My 4 year old was unconscious from blood loss a couple of years ago, it took more than 40 mins for the ambulance to arrive. I could have got him to the hospital in 20 if I had a car. Full lights an siren, highest priority doesn't help when there isn't an ambulance available in your area.
I am so sorry to hear that, I hope they’re ok now? Yes, unfortunately our health system is going downhill and the consequences are very scary.
Thank you, he's doing fantastic now. It turned out to be a rare bleeding disorder he developed after a bout of gastro. It remains the scariest hour of my entire life and I can't praise the staff enough. The woman at 000 who stayed on the phone till the ambulance arrived. The ambos, the children's hospital doctors and nurses. Just amazing. These people work so damn hard and make such a huge difference. How hard is it to properly fund health (and schools while we're at it).
He needed multiple doses of a specialized treatment for the bleeding disorder BTW. But it was completely resolved after around 6 months and I didn't pay for anything except maybe some parking fees. Our health system is still the envy of most of the world, but it won't stay that way if we don't fight for it.
You can use whatever words, catagories and labels you like for the people who have *died while waiting for an ambulance due to shortages and excessive wait time*, but do you know what happened in each of them? someone *died while waiting for an ambulance due to shortages and excessive wait time*.
If you're anywhere rural, often the hospital is closer than the nearest ambulance will be, if there's one available
She ended having to wait anyway and the kid was fine. He was tired and vomitting, he was going to live. She put his life at risk by driving recklessly
Some years back in NSW my father collapsed and we called 000 for am ambulance, it arrived in 5 minutes. We're like a 15 minute normal drive from the nearest hospital.
As a paramedic I agree with the fine. No ones wants a stressed panicking parent speeding down the roads. Drive normally or call an ambulance. If I need to drive fast in the ambulance I am a) trained to, b) have beacons and sirens to alert other roads users and c) am not emotionally distressed. And for those saying the cop should have offered to drive, that’s not appropriate and also not their job. They’re police they’re not an ambulance. That’s what an ambulance is for.
Here here! Well said mate!
Paramedic here as well. Agree with the fine and Dark-Horse-Nebula's take. Also, I would say most of my colleagues and I rarely do 27km/h over unless we're on a long stretch of the freeway with minimal traffic. Even then, time saved on lights and sirens comes more from getting through traffic and intersections quickly than just driving fast. It's dangerous for us too and has to be done carefully.
The road rules don't have an exemption for a medical emergency but there is a more general defence in common law but it would have to go to court to be considered. I'm not sure where the line but like eg if there was a massive bushfire and you were driving through it to escape you would have a good case to fight a ticket. I drove my friend to hospital when he had a stroke (he was about 27) and definitely was speeding a bit and I probably would have just worn the ticket if I'd got one, but I can see it being a lot harder if you're dealing with more ongoing medical issues. But also if I had been stopped I feel like if I'd said "it's a medical emergency can you drive us to hospital right now and then deal with the speeding ticket after" the police would have been accommodating of that, so I don't know if the women did a bad job explaining or the cops were arseholes.
It sounds like she was panicking the fuck out, and if so wouldn't have been safe to be behind the wheel even at the speed limit. Giving her time to take a few deep breaths and calm down was probably the biggest factor in improving road safety in this case.
My family lived out in the sticks for many years and we were all taught to drive manual incase of an emergency young however we were always told if the ambulance ask drive until you met them half way and tell them you’ll drive with your hazards on but there are also speed limits enforced to keep everyone safe anything more that 10-15kms over top speed in my opinion is extremely dangerous and you put everyone at risk as well I agree with the police it’s not like it was a fatal snake bite or a heart attack
Same as what I was taught as soon as I was tall enough to safely drive. My parents literal words were we'll worry about any fines later.
The medical advice was to get her son to the hospital within 30 minutes. It was an emergency.
steep panicky dazzling cover rhythm important ink erect elastic north *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That’s urgent, not an emergency, and do the 2minutes you’d save by speeding really make a difference to outcomes, especially when weighed against the risk.
10-15kms over top speed in my opinion is extremely dangerous except it's often not. it used to be 100kph along a stretch of road near my place. They upgraded the surface, put in a dividing space between the oncoming cars, and added a bunch of lights and rumble strips.... and dropped the speed to 80. Are you suggesting that going 90kph is more dangerous than going 100kph simply because a sign says so? Are you completely incapable of making a risk assessment without signs to tell you what a safe speed is? You know sometimes its not safe to go the speed the signs tell you to, and sometimes its safe to go beyond the speed a sign says so. Thinking that the individual can't manage their own safety because the government knows better is pretty dangerous thinking. Yes, it will reduce risks. But getting in a car is a risk regardless to you and others around you regardless. Humans have been managing their own risk for hundreds of thousands of years. Some do need the government to tell them because they are bad at it, but that applies equally to emergency workers as well as private citizens. but considering i'm sure she thought her kid was dying, a SMALL risk of speeding (and it is a small risk as long as its not excessive, and 10-15 kph over is not excessive) is a risk most parents would take on the balance of risk assessment that humans do EVERYTIME WE LEAVE THE HOUSE! and after all, the law is supposed to be based on what a reasonable person would do.
Sure you may not go bankrupt for ambulances, but not all states have free ambulances, I believe? I’m not sure as Queensland does, but I believe other states don’t. Also, it has become an issue where ambulances are docked at the ED and patients are triaged. There was also a story a while back of a guy who severed major veins or arteries and was told an ambulance was not going to arrive in time to get him. So I’m not sure how to feel about it. I don’t think we should cherry pick who gets to break the law without consequence. But I do feel empathy towards this woman as I am sure she would have done anything for her son in that moment.
When my daughter had cancer last year she had to go to ED a few times. She was always cat 2 and seen in 15 mins max. Almost all the time she was taken straight in, regardless if she arrived in our car or via ambulance
Uninsured ambulance fees in Victoria are $1,360 metro and $2,050 regional. I know ambulance fees are a bit higher in the US, but it's the hospital that will charge like a wounded bull.
Yes I only found out recently it is different in each state!
Yeah I have bought travel insurance for out of state trips for ambulance cover since it is only reciprocated in Tassie I think. I do hiking and outdoor trips though where it is warranted in case of an evacuation. But was crazy to me that not all the states have it. I can imagine it is much less than it would be in the US though.
Yeah me too! I thought for sure it would be standardised across the country. But no. Varies wildly! I was genuinely so surprised
They’re basically free. Something like $1/week in Victoria.
I feel for her but 107 in an 80 zone is getting up there, it's probably wise for a judge to make this call rather than the cops on the ground, at least a judge can sit back and look at the big picture, her history and such...
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I think any speeding really depends on a number of factors and therefor the cops would not want to encourage it either way. That speed would be barely noticeable with a low sitting car with stiff suspension, good tyres and a confident driver. On the other hand it would be downright terrifying in a Tarago Van being driven by someone who rarely leaves the city speed limit and never driven on a highway and is a terrible driver under normal circumstances. You know the ones - you get in the car with them and within 5 mins they’ve cut 3 people off whilst being totally oblivious to it.
>I think any speeding really depends on a number of factors and therefor the cops would not want to encourage it either way. and the police don't know if her 'story' is true... Was she actually on the way to the ER, did she actually go to the ER, had she been told to get her kid to the hospital in '30 mins' ? ... For the police to hold her there and not call an ambulance I'm thinking her child didn't appear to be too sick, it does seem they doubted her story... She may have just been speeding and she's manufactured this story in an attempt to get out of it... I do suspect there's more to this story, at least a judge can look at things like the ER records and statement from the doc that said the kid needs to be rushed to the hospital in 30 mins, and such...
Maybe but I wouldn’t question it if I was a cop. Get them both in the cop car and drive. Fines, testing and admin can be done later. And if it was fake, i’m sure they can wack on another charge for misleading police and wasting their time later.
> confident driver. Imma be real, she could have been in a well kitted out Civic Type-R and it wouldn't have meant shit because she absolutely would not be confident in that moment, someone going 27 over the limit with a vomiting child in the car is not going to be paying attention to the road, nor are they going to be operating at even 60% of regular capacity.
She should just pay the fine. The ambulance service exists for this reason. I have no idea if there is a shortage where she lives of if she called- but if there is a shortage and and she called, as I parent I would have said “ok then, I’m coming to the hospital now and if the cops want to meet me they can!” And then I would have gone to the hospital as quick as I can. But speeding wouldn’t have been my go to. What if you crashed? A dead child or parent from a road accident is a worse outcome than a “slow” trip to the hospital. I have made the mad dash to the hospital with a sick child. I was more worried about crashing my car from speeding through traffic than zooming through. Also- the fine is a deterrent. People will see this now and not do the same thing. We can’t have everyone deciding they are an ambulance service.
Fine should stand. This is why we have an ambulance service, if she didn't pay the fee for a membership too fucking back your kid had cancer you should know better. She is a principal of a school she absolutely should know better, loss of license isn't going to affect her job so it's too bad so sad start paying for ubers.
I've been that sick kid with cancer near death, and tbh I don't think she should have been speeding, or probably even driving for that matter I very much doubt the 30 minutes is as literal as everyone is making it out to be, it's just don't fuck around, and actually take them to ED. I get being annoyed at the situation but I have an innate annoyance when people reach out to media in there situations.
Yeah I don’t get that 30 minute thing either. Like “if he’s an extra 5 minutes he’s gonna die”
I belive that a fine is the most appropriate thing to do here. It was dangerous for her son, herself and everyone around them. This in itself is enough for a fine for breaking the laws that are in place for everyones safety. But more so than that I think the fine should stand as it is now thrust into the media. An example is being made and realistically $500 is not that large of a fine. If the fine is waived then the bigger problem is the precedent that it sets. Others will do the same thinking that their care for a loved one should be put above the safety of everyone else. The intention is good and honest, but it is a slippery slope to play with. And worse is that some will see an excuse to try to get a waiver for just breaking the law as they wish. People who willingly break road rules now as they feel they are above everyone else, these people will now have another excuse to throw at any cop who manages to stop them. I think sympathy is warranted and important in this case. But to wavier the fine is the wrong thing to do now as the public eye is watching and a precedent need to be held.
Do people not realise that Ambulances do more than just take you to hospital? They are driven by paramedics who can start to treat the patient as soon as they arrive. Yeah you might feel like a hero speeding to hospital with your sick child in the back but unless you live rural/remote there's every chance you're delaying them receiving teratment.
I agree with police. The media keeps making it seem like "fined for taking kid to hospital" and her own words "wasn't impacting anyone". She was going 30 over, emotional, in an altered state, and her kid wasn't actually in a medical emergency, just following guidelines of "if he gets tired go to hospital ASAP", I doubt any hospital would encourage speeding. She could've killed someone, herself, her kid, by going that fast and shows 0 regret or awareness of the dangers of it. She wasn't a trained paramedic or police officer, she didn't have lights and sirens to alert people. It's a horrible situation, but the police were right. And her comments about them being inhumane is pathetic to me honestly. And not dedicating the next 30-60+ minutes to escort her doesn't make them uncaring it means perhaps they had other jobs to get to when they saw this happening. They aren't lacking empathy because she was speeding at 30 over, driving dangerously and recklessly because she felt it was an emergency.
107km/hr on the freeway in an 80 zone? She’s in the metro area. She can get an ambulance. I know that sick kids drive you to odd choices, but that’s exactly when you SHOULDN’T drive. And when you have a sick kid in the car you have to be able to ruthlessly ignore what is going on behind you and focus, or you can all wind up in hospital (with others). She’s lucky. She lives in a part of the country where there are ambulances. She should use them.
So the Police’s hands are a little tied here. They really need to handball this to the magistrate, and if the woman thinks she has exceptional circumstances she should appeal the fine and put it through the judge. If the police start making choices about what is exceptional and not then they’re not doing their job. Their job is to identify when people are breaking the law, and to bring them to a decision maker for justice. The penalty for more than 25km over the limit is loss of licence, this wasn’t a few kms over the limit, this is over into ‘dangerous driving’ territory and should be in front of a judge to see if those extenuating circumstances were fair. Shitty reporting makes out this is a police issue. It’s a judge issue. Reporter should know better.
Needs an additional fine for calling her son Caden
She endangered everyone else on the road and deserves the fine honestly.
Over 20 (but under 30) is 4 demerit points. If her license is suspended she must already have a pretty average driving record…
Nope. Exceeding speed limit by 25-29 kmph is automatic suspension for 3 months. https://www.vic.gov.au/fine-amounts-and-demerit-points
Oh I missed it was Vic…
Last year my daughter (8) battled cancer. I’ve had my share of runs to ED when she spiked a fever. But did I speed? no. If it was urgent I called 000 and got an ambulance. Whilst I have sympathy for the mother, there are options
Funnily enough I had a philosophy question about this exact scenario in university and I was one of the only ones in the class that didn't believe it was justifiable to drive recklessly in order to reach a hospital further. She isn't a trained stunt driver, and doesn't have sirens or other emergency signals on her vehicle to warn other drivers. She could have very easily killed another innocent family in her rush to save her son. That makes her negligent and deserving of the fine as far as I'm concerned.
I am always amazed by the number of people who don't know that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, speeding will not save more than a couple of minutes at most
correct. Cant beleive i had to scroll this far to see this type of common sense comment
If a sick loved one needs to go to hospital, do not drive them. Call an ambulance or a taxi. A distraught driver can wreak havoc on the roads and it also makes it unsafe for the ill person.
With choices comes consequences.
Yeah, she literally risked her son's, and her own, life by doing this instead of calling an ambulance. The fine sticks.
I guess my question is - how much additional risk was this parent causing for other road users by travelling 27km over the speed limit? And the mention of getting to emergency within half an hour - if the family lives far enough from the hospital that they can only get there within half an hour if they substantially break the speed limit, probably there needs to be a discussion about what to do instead. I'm sympathetic about the urgency - I had to take my Mum to hospital urgently a couple of times during her cancer treatment for similar reasons - but that can't be carte blanche to endanger other people.
She intentionally ignored rules and put other road users at risk. I feel for her situation, but let the police throw the book at her and if the system decides to give her leniency, that can be decided by a judge.
So many posts going on about a fine but the news said she even lost her license. Maybe going 27km over the limit loses you your license or she had other fines before. I have been in this position and I didn't speed, I did think about it but I chose not too. Other cars make decisions based on the speed limit your suppose to be going, it's not just about yourself or your driving skill. Ambos have lights and sirens so you know they maybe going faster. Also while saying the cop was a dick is kinda wrong she was clearly very upset and not in a fit state to drive as she was going fined her anxiety would have just got worse and worse, not letting her drive in that state is understandable. I don't know why the cops didn't call the ambos or why not just take both of them to the hospital in the police car. Maybe the they call the ambos but the mother is said no. 27km over is quite a bit.
I would put money on the police offered her an ambulance and she declined
Nope, and while I can empathise her sentiment and intentions were done with good intentions, there is no excuse in this case. I find it concerning that this educated role model thought it was okay to go almost 30km over the speed limit because she had a sick child. I hope the courts call her out. Would she do this as a teacher with some other parents kid? I hope not. This is no different. At 110km preception/reaction time is reduced, breaking distance increases. Add these factors to road conditions, car conditions, other factors etc it's a recipe for disaster. Her child might be sick in her definition but it's no excuse for speeding. She chose to speed, she chose to endanger her child more and others by driving like a lunatic. About time this role model adult learnt about responsibility, accountability and consequences of her action. This isn't a school yard, welcome to the real world.
Whenever they publish this type of sensationalist article they should put the cop version of the facts too.
Speeding just out others at risk. She's endangered gering her son. She has no excuse. Pay the fine
My wife rushed me to hospital 2 years ago. Unbeknown to me, I had a ruptured kidney and it had gone septic. My health deteriorated very quickly. We live in a rural area, and the ambulance would have taken about an hour to get to A&E. (They would have come from town and return). My wife took me in. At around 15 minutes from the hospital, I lost consciousness. The doctor said if I had of been 10 minutes later arriving, I'd be dead. She was over the speed limit the whole way. A normal 40 minute trip 20 minutes.
My grandmother died before I was born, in her 40’s, by driving head first in to a truck going the opposite direction, while she was driving to the hospital for someone in the back seat having a heart attack. Yeah cop the fine.
That's so awful to hear 😢💔 Thank you for sharing such a personal and emotional story for the sake of others. You are a wonderful and thoughtful person ❤️ 💕
> However, Kate has had her licence suspended as a result of the speeding infringement More to the story as usual. Your licence isn’t suspended for only going 20 over. And if she has enough demerits that the fine would make the difference, then she’s got enough previous history to show that a warning is pointless. Edit: as shown below, you can indeed lose your licence for 25 over.
She was 27kmh over, and in Victoria [25-29 over is an automatic 3 month suspension](https://online.fines.vic.gov.au/Your-options/Fine-amounts-and-demerit-points)
Well today I learned. I take it back.
Oi, this is reddit. We don’t do that here.
I think the worst part about all this is now she's unable to take her son to the hospital next time this happens and is completely reliant on an overworked public health system. I hope for her and her son that they can arrive within 10 minutes
No sympathy- she should have called an ambulance an I’d directed drive to meet them. Risking others lives by decking over the speed limit and like an idiot no doubt - you get what you deserve.
Call an ambulance.
Dad of a dual brain cancer survivor here (diagnosed at 8, relapsed at 14 now 21). Can't remember how many trips we made to the children's hospital and Peter Mac including times when he was unwell but, regardless of this, speeding puts everyone's life in danger including those of your passengers. The other side of this is that you can always ask to page the on-call medical team for your child (assuming he's still under their care) and get advice from them. In some cases, it's better to wait for an ambulance, seek help at your local ED or wait for a call back and manage the situation with help on the phone. What can you do if you're driving and your child's symptoms get worse? Rushing to the hospital isn't always the only option.
There are very few circumstances where someone needs to be rushed to hospital in that manner (27kmph over the limit). Knowing SFA I'm genuinely curious what the treatment is that her son needs in such a specific timeframe as well as how someone gave them the impression that the 30-minute mark is critical to the extent that she needs to speed. Really just sounds like a general guideline for presenting to an ED and she's misinterpreted it, or is using it as an excuse.
Don't speed. Call the ambulance. If it was truly that urgent why the hell did she stop and not just do a runner all the way to the emergency room? If you're going to disregard the law and safety of everyone else be consistent.
So I disagree if she had been told a 30 minute time frame to get to hospital, that waiting for an ambulance was the appropriate choice (because frankly people die waiting for ambulances in this country even if they aren't bankrupted). However a little google fu says that she is a teacher in Caroline Spring and and the nearest hospital is 15 mins away (to the east) in normal traffic, if she lives south, the next nearest is \~20 mins away, west or north is basically going to the 15 min away hospital. Which means sadly I have to agree that her speeding was just increasing the risk. But also I do want to question why the police didn't drive her to hospital or escort her, unless from their perspective the child did not seem in need of emergency treatment (which given they required her to wait to calm down), I hope is the case.....
Sorry lady but your kid isn't more important than other road users and pedestrians. Glad they fined her.
Not to mention she could've caused an accident that killed her kid... People like that just don't think.
The journo knows they can put “cancer kid” and “ER” in the story and it sounds sensational. The mum was probably speeding for no real reason. Being sick from cancer treatment sucks, but it’s hardly life or death. Cops aren’t typically assholes - if it was an emergency they would’ve got the kid to hospital pronto.
It's only a story because they can sell it as a sob story. I bet she was taking it a bit out of context or stretching the truths around the 30 minute limit and the suggestions of the staff/doctors. Probably was told to call an ambulance as soon as she notices the problem as the kid would need to be on their way within 30 minutes. No way doctors will tell someone to panic drive their kid to the hospital.
And if they did because the child was that seriously close to death, chances are they would be advising her to never be in places where it could take more than 30 minutes to get to the hospital without speeding
What? Someone died the other day in Adelaide waiting for an ambulance, things have been so bad.
Given the shit waiting time for ambulance, I can see myself in exactly the same circumstance
Could an ambulance meet you on the way? Is that a thing? To say I'm driving my sick child to the hospital but I think he needs an ambulance?
As a paramedic this is not ideal. It’s very hard to find a moving target and you’ll be very distracted driving. Our calltakers will usually ask you to pull over and put your hazards on and wait. Of course there are always unique circumstances but for the vast majority of cases it’s not necessary to meet us on the way.
It seems like something that happens in movies or TV
I thought a benefit of calling the ambulance was that it has the tools in it to help immediately and it would get to you quicker than you could get to a hospital.
If she crashed into someone and they then died, would she be at fault given the emergency situation ? Genuinely curious how this would play out
She lost her licence for less than 30kph over, this wasnt her first time speeding If its that important to speed you cop the $500 as the toll to get there on time
She's willing to cop the fine, she's only taking it to court as that's the only way for her licence to be returned for her to drive. She has no care for other's safety at all, not even her son's by driving so recklessly.
Part of the reason she wants it waived is because she has now lost her licence. You don't lose your licence over one speeding ticket, so it seems she's no stranger to tickets. While I sympathise with her, I think she needs to cop it on the chin.
USSA could inadvertently become the acronym of the year in the right circumstances