Question 1 · Law, Ethics & Human Factors · Moderate
A rural BASICS scheme's volunteers respond in their own cars when the ambulance service requests them. The responders are a general practitioner registered with the General Medical Council, an HCPC-registered paramedic and an NMC-registered nurse, and each would like to fit a green warning beacon to their car. Under the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989, which statement about green warning beacons is correct?
- AThey may be fitted to a vehicle used by a GMC-registered medical practitioner
- BThey may be fitted to a vehicle used by any HCPC-registered paramedic responder
- CThey may be fitted to a vehicle used by any clinician on a BASICS scheme rota
- DThey may be fitted only to an ambulance control vehicle at an emergency scene
- EThey may be fitted only once the police have approved the driver's training
Show answer
Answer: A
They may be fitted to a vehicle used by a GMC-registered medical practitioner
Regulation 11(2)(m) of the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989 permits green light from a warning beacon fitted to a vehicle used by a medical practitioner registered by the General Medical Council (with full or provisional registration). No other profession is named, so the paramedic's and the nurse's cars may not carry one, and membership of a BASICS scheme gives no entitlement of its own. Green light does appear elsewhere in regulation 11 - from a chequered domed lamp on an ambulance control vehicle at the scene of an emergency (11(2)(j)) - but that is a separate permission, not a restriction on doctors. Nothing in the green-beacon provision requires police approval; the Oxford Handbook's point about police agreement concerns blue lights and sirens, which it says are subject to local agreement and must not be assumed. The Handbook (p. 28) describes the same green-light entitlement but attributes it to 'Road Vehicle Licensing Regulations 1984' and says the doctor must be fully registered; the current Regulations are the 1989 Lighting Regulations and say full or provisional registration, so cite those.
Where this comes from
- Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989, regulation 11“used by a medical practitioner registered by the General Medical Council”Open at this section
- Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989, regulation 11“a chequered domed lamp fitted to an ambulance control vehicle”Open at this section
- Oxford Handbook of Pre-Hospital Carep. 28Ch. 1 An approach to pre-hospital care · Transport: lights and sirens“The law allows medical practitioners responding to emergencies to carry green lights.”