Video shows tour bus refusing to yield to ambulance

影片顯示遊覽車拒絕禮讓救護車

Video has surfaced of a Taiwanese tour bus appearing to deliberately refuse to yield to an ambulance


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- Video has surfaced of a tour bus driving on Provincial Highway 9 refusing to yield to an ambulance desperately trying to pass as it carries a critically ill patient for an excruciating three minutes.

Breaking News Commune (爆料公社) member Tsai Shu-chen (蔡淑貞) on Saturday (Nov. 25) shared footage of a tour bus ignoring the sirens of an ambulance as it urgently tries to pass it from behind. Though some sections of the mountain road are narrow, there are clearly wide enough shoulders for the bus to pull over and yield to the ambulance, instead the driver keeps plowing forward, hogging the road.

The ambulance driver, surnmed Chen (陳), while trying to transport a patient on Nov. 25 at 10 a.m. on Provincial Highway 9, told the media that not only did the tour bus not give way despite his sirens, it seemed that it deliberately sped up at points to prevent the ambulance from passing it, reported ETtoday. Chen said it was not until a driver of sedan had seen enough and decided to drive down the scooter lane and block the bus, was the ambulance finally able to pass the rogue tour bus.

Chen thanked the courageous driver of the sedan, "If it was not for the driver of the car, the patient might have died."

While Chen was responsible for transferring a patient from Kuanshan Tzu Chi Hospital in Taitung to Mackay Hospital in Taitung, he suddenly received a call that he must urgently pick up another patient who was not able to breathe on their own back to Kuanshan Tzu Chi Hostpital. It was at this critical moment that he was blocked by the tour bus, an ordeal which lasted for three minutes.

Chen said, "When it started, the tour bus was in front of me, and the road conditions were poor (narrow, two-lane road with heavy oncoming traffic in the other lane and sharp, hairpin turns)." Chen said he was concerned about safety of other motorists and did not dare to forcibly pass him, thus he was forced to wait it out.

However, the owner of the tour bus company said that that at the time passengers were singing KTV songs and the driver did not hear the ambulance's sirens. The company owner said that it was because of music on board the bus that the driver did not hear the siren and not because he intentionally tried to block the ambulance.

As the video posted by Tsai only shows two minutes of the three-minute ordeal, Taitung County police are searching for the entirety of the video to determine whether the tour bus deliberately blocked the ambulance. If the driver is found to be at fault, he will face a fine of NT$3,600 (US$120) and a suspension of his driver's license for three months.