What not to do at an intersection with an ambulance approaching.
Presumed Massachusettsan and Redditor /u/BrokenMan4225 shared some frustrating dashcam footage from Chelsea, Mass from earlier last week (July 7, 2024) showing the moment two drivers at this Revere Beach Pkwy intersection made an uneventful situation from an approaching ambulance more dangerous than it had to be.
Check out his dashcam video below.
No words [OC]
byu/BrokenMan4225 inIdiotsInCars
As mentioned, the incident happened at the intersection of Revere Beach Pkwy and Garfield Ave in Chelsea, Mass (Exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
As OP’s dashcam footage shows, he approaches the intersection going at the speed of traffic.
Unbeknownst to him at first, an ambulance is approaching on Garfield Ave to his left.
Regardless, OP seems aware of the general increased risks there are driving through busy intersections and visibly slows before passing through.
That defensive maneuver pays off as OP sees two front cars that have a red light and who do not have the right of way, pull into the intersection, seemingly without prompting.
The reason why they pulled out becomes clear as we see and hear the lights and sounds of a Cataldo Ambulance going through the slip lane on Garfield Ave before proceeding in front of OP and the stopped cars that pulled forward.
Recognizing the ambulance, OP pulls to the right.
By all accounts, OP did everything correctly in this situation.
It was, however, a perfect storm of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
What didn’t help were those two cars pulling out into the intersection when they should’ve just stayed put.
Here’s a birds-eye view of the intersection in question where those two cars were highlighted with a red square.

According to Firehouse.com on what to do with an approaching ambulance,
“Do – Move your vehicle to the right, if at all possible. Then, come to a complete stop, and wait. Remember, “Move to the right for sirens and lights.”
&
“Don’t Stop in the middle of an intersection. Proceed through it, then pull over to the right.”
Although OP got his fair share of criticism on why he didn’t react perfectly, most defended OP for doing everything he could do right in that particular situation as it played out.
The top-rated comment with nearly 3,000 upvotes is from /u/kikistiel, who sums it up quite nicely.
“I’m sorry but everyone ragging on OP about the ambulance is doing too much. What I’m seeing is a couple of things going wrong here:
“OP was coming up to the intersection at 45ish mph. Someone mentions he shouldn’t run up on an ambulance like that. I didn’t start hearing or seeing it until he was already in the intersection because he was following the flow of traffic”
“The cars that pulled that far out did it poorly. Trying to let the ambulance go or not, it is NOT SAFE to pull out like this into incoming traffic. Especially when oncoming traffic is coming up so fast that they can’t see nor hear the ambulance until they’re already on top of it. They can be “in the right” all they want but it still would cause a massive accident.
“-I urge everyone to remember that you have the luxury of watching and rewatching this over and over to the point where you know how you would have reacted. OP almost hit traffic pulling out into him and had to make a quick stop. My adrenaline would be pumping. It’s a lot easier to know those two cars almost just caused a massive crash because they were pulling out for an ambulance after the fact.“
“This seems like such a “perfect storm” wrong place at the wrong time incident yet everyone is giving OP the 3rd degree. Yes, lots of mistakes made here all around but d*** guys.”
Approaching ambulances makes intersections that much more of a challenge to navigate.
Regardless if an ambulance is approaching or not, we can take a page from OP’s book, to slow down at intersections and heighten our awareness of what cars can potentially do as we encounter them.
Here, OP didn’t know an ambulance was there, but by driving defensively, he set himself up for success to safely pass through.