One of the quickest ways to ignite a spirited argument is to bring up the subject of driving habits. (Two volatile subtopics might be slow drivers in left lanes and tailgaters. Lots of pseudo-experts are standing by to weigh in on those issues).
Today, though, we’ll make it easy for all the debating drivers and driving debaters out there. All of us can agree on the need to protect the safety of highway emergency workers, including law officers dealing with law violators, first-response medical teams tending to injuries, roadside assistance workers and tow truck operators. Simple as this might seem, statistics in recent years have brought about the need for a tougher law that took affect this month.
Clark County drivers might have noticed the “Move over! Slow down! It’s the law!” message boards along area roads recently. It’s the more colloquial description of what was technically known in last year’s legislative session as House Bill 2464. The bill, which passed unanimously in the House and 32-8 in the Senate (to their credit, no Clark County legislators opposed it), adds a few crucial enforcement tools in the nationwide problem of crashes involving emergency workers.
The new law, strengthening a bill that was approved in 2007, creates an emergency zone 200 feet before and after a stationary emergency vehicle with flashing lights. Speeding fines in this zone are now double, similar to regulations that already were in effect in construction zones. The law also requires motorists to “move over” and make room for emergency workers to perform what often are lifesaving tasks that are dangerous under the best circumstances.
Unfortunately, some nitpickers unnecessarily complicate this simple matter by worrying about on which side of the road an emergency vehicle might be parked or what precisely constitutes an emergency or what color the lights might be or some other manufactured dilemma. But here’s how simple it all really has become: If you see flashing lights or flares, as the bill states, “proceed with caution, reduce speed and, if reasonable and safe, yield the right-of way by passing to the left.”
That pretty much covers it all and “if reasonable and safe” affords the drivers some measure of discretion. “If changing lanes would be unreasonable or unsafe,” the bill noted, “the driver must proceed with caution and reduce speed.
Or, in what parts of the highway does the emergency zone exist? Again, you’re making it too complicated. But the bill specifies “the adjacent lanes of the roadway 200 feet before and after a stationary emergency vehicle with a siren or flashing lights, a tow truck using red lights, an emergency assistance vehicle using warning lights or a police vehicle using emergency lights.”
We’re glad the state is mandating “Move over! Slow down! It’s the law!” because it protects multiple stakeholders: motorists, public-sector law officers, private-sector tow truck drivers who are working to clear the roads and roadsides of inoperative vehicles, victims of accidents, angels of mercy sent to help those victims, and good Samaritans who are helping people deal with vehicle problems.
That’s a lot of people performing an abundance of tasks. The Washington State Patrol lists 57 collisions in the past three years involving passing vehicles and trooper vehicles parked along highways. The bill passed in the Legislature notes that almost 200 tow truck drivers have been killed on roadsides nationwide in the past three years.
The safest and most law-abiding driver in the world still must deal with roadside incidents that affect other people. So slow down and move over, and don’t try to complicate the issue.
