Does the California Highway Traffic Safety Act exempt an employer from liability for negligence attributable to the driver's failure to comply with specified statutory provisions?

We can attribute to the legislative intent, in addition to the requirement of an adequate warning to others using the highway, the further requirement that the driver of an emergency vehicle exercise that degree of care which, under all the circumstances, would not impose upon others an unreasonable risk of harm. In short the statute exempts the employer of such a driver from liability for negligence attributable to his failure to comply with specified statutory provisions, but it does not in any manner purport to exempt the employer from liability due to negligence attributable to the driver's failure to maintain that standard of care imposed by the common law. We held as much in an analogous situation in Yarrow v. State of California, supra, 53 Cal.2d 427, 2 Cal.Rptr. 137, 348 P.2d 687. That case did not deal with exemptions for emergency vehicles, but instead with exemptions for vehicles engaged

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