Traffic lights should turn red as ambulance approaches

Editor,

I have been reading and re-reading the story of the car that drove through the intersection on the green light and the ambulance crashed into it (July 7, "South Ogden pileup kills one, injures six"). I have written a "Letter to the Editor" about this before when a similar thing happened in another city. The people in that car claimed they were not able to hear the siren and the number of cars at the intersection blocked their view of the oncoming emergency vehicles. They too had the green light and proceeded on and were struck by the ambulance.

I proposed then, that the Department of Transportation come up with a sensor that could be placed on the traffic signals and when an emergency vehicle approaches, it would automatically turn all the traffic lights red. I propose this again, and I would like to encourage someone in the ‘DOT’ to think about a solution to keep other people from getting hurt or killed while they really aren’t breaking the traffic law. With automobiles as quiet as they are now an emergency siren is not as effective is it used to be. When there are three or four people in a car talking, the driver can easily be distracted and not hear it.