Does a police driver decide to switch on the lights and siren?

AnalysisSignals do two things at once: they ask other traffic to give way, and they unlock the departures from ordinary rules that make speed possible. Both of those impose on people outside the incident, and both are easier to justify from a room that can see how many calls are running than from a vehicle that can see one.

The rule is stated without qualification: "De politie mag uitsluitend met toestemming van de meldkamer gebruikmaken van optische en geluidssignalen" — the police may use optical and audible signals only with the control room’s permission.

The permission is bounded rather than open-ended: it ends once other emergency services have already arrived at the incident. And urgency does not always mean signals — in some situations officers respond urgently without them.

The service also states the limit of what permission buys: "Dit betekent niet dat politieagenten roekeloos mogen rijden, of dat ze het overige verkeer in gevaar mogen brengen" — it does not mean officers may drive recklessly or endanger other traffic. A member of the public may complain about police driving.

Authorisation sits outside the vehicle

Permission comes from the control room. The crew asks; somebody else decides, holding information the crew does not have.

Permission is bounded, not granted for a shift

It ends when other emergency services have arrived. The authorisation attaches to a situation and expires with it.

Urgency and signals are separable

Some urgent responses are made deliberately without signals. Absence of lights does not indicate absence of urgency.

Permission is not a defence to bad driving

The service states that this does not permit reckless driving or endangering other traffic. Authorisation changes what is permitted, not what is answerable.

And the arrangement is one service’s

Who authorises signals elsewhere was not researched. Nothing here describes any other country, and no general rule is claimed.

• Common belief: The officer driving decides when to use lights and siren.

  In practice: In the service researched here, signals may be used only with the control room’s permission. The decision sits outside the vehicle.

• Common belief: Once permission is given it lasts until the job is finished.

  In practice: The published position is that permission ends once other emergency services have already arrived at the incident.

• Common belief: No lights means it is not urgent.

  In practice: The service states that in some situations officers respond urgently without signals. Absence of signals is not evidence of a lesser response.

• Common belief: Permission to use signals is permission to drive as fast as necessary.

  In practice: The same page states that this does not mean officers may drive recklessly or endanger other traffic, and that a member of the public may complain about police driving.

• Common belief: Every police service works this way.

  In practice: One service was researched. Who authorises signals in any other system was not researched, and no general arrangement is claimed here.

One service, as it publishes itself.

• Signals may be used only with the control room’s permission.
• Permission ends once other emergency services have arrived.
• Some urgent responses are made deliberately without signals.
• Permission does not authorise reckless driving or endangering other traffic.
• A member of the public may complain about police driving.
• Not researched: every other system, and the test the control room applies.

AnalysisPutting the authorisation in the control room creates a record of a decision that would otherwise exist only in a driver’s memory. Somebody asked, somebody granted, and both can be examined afterwards. That is a modest piece of accountability engineering, and it is worth noticing that it comes from the same room the corpus describes elsewhere as taking the call and sending the unit.

• One service was researched — the Dutch national police. Who authorises signals anywhere else was NOT RESEARCHED, and the arrangement is not presented as general.
• What the control room applies in deciding was NOT ESTABLISHED. The service states that permission is required; it does not publish the test on this page.
• How a decision is recorded, reviewed or challenged afterwards was NOT RESEARCHED.
• Which other vehicles or services may use such signals, and on what basis, was NOT RESEARCHED for any system.
• No speed figure, driving technique or response tactic appears here, and none is drawn from the source.

Related: when police may depart from traffic rules, taking the call and sending the unit, and police vehicles and what they are for.