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Comment by bmomb | Hacker News Reader

Just a curiosity, in Brazil some executives are using ambulances for commuting[0].

[0] https://www.metrojornal.com.br/foco/2017/08/29/empresa-aluga... (article in portuguese)

Orson Welles also famously used an ambulance to get around to various radio shoes in NYC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AOrson_Welles

  Due to his busy radio schedule,
  he was hard pressed to find ways
  to get from job to job in busy New
  York City traffic. In an interview
  conducted in his later years,
  Welles tells how he "discovered
  that there was no law in New York 
  that you had to be sick to travel 
  in an ambulance." Therefore, he
  took to hiring ambulances to take 
  him, sirens blazing, through the
  crowded streets to get to various
  buildings.

There's a lady in South Carolina who's on medicaid that did that to the tune of costing the medicaid office about $400,000. I'll have to see if I can find the article.

EDIT: Found it http://www.live5news.com/story/22075845/live-5-news-investig...

Shameful to see the officials congratulate themselves on busting the lady after she copped a free ambulance ride 100 times.

Seems like she was merely hacking a horribly inefficient system.

Can't argue that. Can you imagine the liability from the ambulance staff if they just didn't pick her up though?

Yup, age old "that's not my job" strikes again.

Wrong: the shame is on the woman who knowingly abused the system and took money away from sick people. Just because you can hack a system doesn't mean that you should.

What portion of the blame does the poor woman bear? What is the just punishment?

What about people who visit emergency rooms, for non-medical emergencies?

Okay, but why does an ambulance ride in America cost $4,000 a pop? An Uber travelling the same distance would cost $4, maybe $40.

This is health care costs being out of control right there.

Apparently this is (or was in 2013) a thing in Russia as well: https://jalopnik.com/ultra-rich-russians-hire-fake-ambulance...

São Paulo has the biggest helicopter transport fleet in the world, so that's not necessary. Just a case of someone trying to cheat the system, paying less for something illegal.

Executives and doctors are some of the common users of helicopters around here.

Stephen Fry reputedly uses a black cab in London for similar reasons (black taxis in London can use lanes reserved for buses that are less congested).

I suspect that a black cab ceases to be a "black taxi" when it is no longer operated by a licensed black cab driver.

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/red-routes/rules-of-red-rou... specifically says "Licensed London Taxis" which I'm guessing Mr Fry isn't driving.

I suspect that the police/traffic cameras can't tell or don't check and that is how he is (or used to) get away with it.

That's illegal though. It has only survived so far due to lack of enforcement.

That's bound to change pretty quickly after the press got involved.

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