Authorities

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This is why I prefer sketches of situations to words You should be allowed to merge into the next lane. I still say that the officers didn't know how to properly direct traffic... But in order for me to really get this, I need a sketch.

I still stand by my previous statement though, I understand that there are circumstances I'm not going to get, and therefore recognize that I just have to trust the person in what they are talking about- unless it's illegal (which I fortunately have a decent amount of training on).

Sometimes the officer doesn't know what they are doing either, they just have to trust that it's not a worthless effort. I know a few months back, as a civilian, I found myself in that situation when I came up on a truck engulfed in flames. My passenger called the police and watched after my son, as I ran up to the home to get the attention of the person(s) inside. Let them know what was up, asked them if there was a detour behind their home, and when the Fire Department showed up I shocked the driver when I asked for his reflective vest so I could deal with traffic control for him. I didn't have time to verify everything, I just had to trust that the detour was easy to figure out. I'm sure I had more than a few drivers cussing me out, one actually tried to get past me while the flames were still going up, and freaked out when I told them that there WAS a detour if they just followed the road I was sending them down.

It all comes down to trust. If there is a clear violation of the law, then the trust is gone from that situation. But if it's something I don't know what to think, I defer to the people that have far more knowledge than myself.

Hi Alethea, if you had been the police officer and given me clear instructions what to do, I would certainly have followed them . I have to explain the situation a little further for you to understand it better. A truck had hit a signpost hanging over the highway. This was the reason they stopped the cars in the first place, because it was not safe to drive under the signpost, it might have fallen down. So during those 5 hours I waited, they fetched a crane and stabilized the signpost. And then they started to let part of the people pass, after that they were going to remove the whole signpost. However they obviously decided to let the people on the left side pass and not those on the right side. I could see the whole thing, because I was only a few meters away from the site of the accident. The police officers did nothing except standing in the middle of the site doing nothing, only when people started to change lanes they started shouting but even then they didn´t give clear instructions what to do. So, yes, I think, she shouted stop at me, but she could also have shouted "damn it", I didn´t understand it correctly, she didn´t really stop me, she just looked into my direction and shouted - probably - "stop" or "halt" or something. If I had stopped then, people behind me would have had to hit the breaks, I was in doubt if that would cause another accident. The whole situation was very unclear to me and it was very difficult to understand what they wanted from us in the first place, no signs, no barricades, no clear instructions. I wanted to keep the question short so I simplified the description a little, I shouldn´t have done so.

I give you another example of my experiences with german police officers. Once I drove home at night and I came across a heavy and big vehicle driving in the opposite direction. A car with a signpost saying "Drive Slow, Big Vehicle!" came into my direction, accompanied by a police escort, so I drove about 10 km/h and kept on the very right side of the road, being very cautious. Suddenly the police car bashed forward, stopped next to me and the officer pointed his flashlight at me and gave me a sign to stop and open the window. I did so. He furiously yelled at me : "Hey you! What is your problem?" I answered. "Good evening, Sir, have I done anything wrong?" He yelled "Blue lights! Attention!" I answered: "What shall I do?" He yelled"Didn´t you see the signpost?" I said: "Yes, it says "drive slow, big vehicle, I tried to do that, what shall I do now?" He yelled: "Stop your car right now!" I did so, he said nothing, just closed his window and drove away. I was quite confused then. But I was at no point impolite, I tried to follow instructions, which were however - in my opinion - very contradictory.