Are police cars allowed to ignore the rules of the road?

AnalysisTraffic rules are a coordination system: they work because everyone can predict what everyone else will do. A vehicle that must arrive faster than the system allows breaks that prediction, and the cost falls on people who did nothing wrong. An exemption is therefore not a privilege granted to a driver but a decision to move a risk from one place to another, and systems that grant it tend to bound it carefully.

The Dutch police publish the breadth of their exemption as a list. It covers proceeding through a red light — "doorrijden bij een rood verkeerslicht" — driving on the hard shoulder, "rijden over de vluchtstrook", driving where others may not, including tram lanes, bus lanes and pavements, overtaking across a solid line, "inhalen over een doorgetrokken streep", and stopping or parking where that is prohibited to others.

The same service attaches three conditions. Road safety must not be endangered — "de verkeersveiligheid mag niet in gevaar komen"; the use of the exemption must be necessary given the situation — "het gebruik van de vrijstelling is gezien de situatie noodzakelijk"; and the driver must comply with the police traffic guideline.

England and Wales approaches the same problem through statute, and the section read here is about speed alone: "No statutory provision imposing a speed limit on motor vehicles shall apply to any vehicle on an occasion when it is being used for fire and rescue authority, for ambulance purposes or police purposes, if the observance of that provision would be likely to hinder the use of the vehicle for the purpose for which it is being used on that occasion."

The exemption is conditional in both systems

One requires that road safety not be endangered and that use be necessary. The other applies only where obeying the limit would be likely to hinder the purpose. Neither is automatic.

Breadth differs sharply

One published exemption names red lights, hard shoulders, bus lanes, solid lines and parking. The single section read for the other addresses speed limits.

It attaches to the occasion, not to the vehicle

The statutory wording turns on the vehicle being used for the relevant purpose on that occasion. A police vehicle is not permanently exempt; a police vehicle doing a particular thing may be.

Training can be a condition of the exemption

A later subsection requires a driver, except when training, to have completed prescribed high-speed driving instruction for National Crime Agency purposes. Where a system attaches training to an exemption, the exemption belongs to a qualified driver rather than to a role.

And departing from a rule is not immunity from the consequence

Neither arrangement researched here removes responsibility for what happens. The exemption changes which rule applies; it does not settle whether the driving was acceptable.

• Common belief: Police vehicles are exempt from the rules of the road.

  In practice: Both arrangements researched here are conditional and bounded. One names the categories it covers and attaches three conditions; the other applies to speed limits only where obeying them would be likely to hinder the purpose.

• Common belief: A police car is exempt whenever it is a police car.

  In practice: The statutory wording turns on the vehicle being used for the relevant purpose on that occasion. The exemption attaches to the occasion, not permanently to the vehicle.

• Common belief: An exemption from a rule means nothing can go wrong legally.

  In practice: One system states that road safety must not be endangered and that use must be necessary. Departing from a rule does not settle whether the driving was acceptable.

• Common belief: Every country grants the same exemptions.

  In practice: The two researched here differ substantially in breadth. One publishes a list covering several rules; the section read for the other addresses speed limits.

• Common belief: Because only speed is mentioned, that system exempts nothing else.

  In practice: One section was read, and it is about speed limits. Whether other provisions cover other rules was not researched, and an absence of research is not a finding that nothing exists.

• Common belief: This page will tell you how fast police vehicles may go.

  In practice: It will not. No speed figure, performance detail or driving material appears anywhere here, and that boundary is enforced by a test.

Two systems, as each publishes itself.

• Red lights, hard shoulder, tram and bus lanes, solid lines, prohibited parking — Netherlands, published as a list.
• Three conditions: road safety not endangered, use necessary, guideline observed — Netherlands.
• Speed limits, where observance would be likely to hinder the purpose — England and Wales, one section.
• Prescribed high-speed driving instruction required of the driver in a later subsection.
• Not researched: whether other provisions in England and Wales exempt other rules, and every other country.

AnalysisAn exemption is one of the few police powers that is exercised against people who are not suspected of anything. The pedestrian at the crossing and the driver on the roundabout have no involvement in the emergency and carry the whole of the transferred risk. That is why the conditions are the substantive part of the arrangement, and why a system that publishes them has given the public something to hold it to.

• Two systems were researched, and only partially. How police exemptions from traffic rules work anywhere else was NOT RESEARCHED.
• For England and Wales one SECTION was read, and it addresses speed limits. Whether other provisions exempt red lights, keep-left signs, bus lanes or anything else was NOT RESEARCHED. The absence of a finding here is not a finding that no such provision exists.
• What happens when an exemption is exercised badly — the disciplinary or criminal consequence — was NOT RESEARCHED for either system.
• No speed, performance figure, driving technique, pursuit material or vehicle capability appears anywhere on this page. That is a deliberate boundary and it is enforced by a test.
• This page describes rules that bind police drivers. It is not guidance for any other road user.

Related: who authorises emergency signals, police vehicles and what they are for, and police use of force.