MOVE OVER! Here's a law too many drivers ignore
Photos by LOREN BENOIT/Press A motorist incorrectly drives by a Kootenai County Sheriff vehicle parked on the shoulder south of Coeur d’Alene on U.S. 95 during a Traffic Incident Response Awareness event. Law enforcement reminded drivers that when approaching an emergency vehicle with two lanes of traffic, the driver of the motor vehicle must reduce speed and change lanes into a lane that is not adjacent to an emergency vehicle.
Kootenai County Sheriff deputy Jeremy Prosch speaks with a motorist about the need to change lanes while there is an emergency vehicle on the side of the road.
COEUR d’ALENE — From eight years working with a towing company, Terry Vulles remembers a driver whose tow truck got clipped by a tractor-trailer while loading a disabled car on the interstate.
It was night and there were a lot of flashing lights, Vulles said.
The tow truck driver noticed the semitrailer bearing down on the scene, which was filled with red and blue and yellow flashing lights near the Sherman Avenue exit. He jumped into his rig and closed the door before being clipped.
The tow driver suffered injuries in the crash that was a result of inattentiveness and failing to slow down for the flashing lights that begged caution.
It was one of many similar incidents that police, Idaho Transportation Department workers, medical first responders and tow truck drivers experience as a matter of course on their jobs.
Traffic incident response teams, as they’re called by the governor’s office, are being recognized this week by Gov. Butch Otter, who named Nov. 11 to 17 Traffic Incident Response Awareness Week.
“This week, and every week, I encourage motorists to help keep them safe, by slowing down and moving over when you see them doing their jobs,” the governor said in a press release.
The state’s “move over law” requires motorists to give first responders a berth, usually by moving over to the next lane when passing an incident scene.
Deputy Chief Bill Deruyter of the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department said that despite the law, motorists often don’t pay attention as they pass traffic incidents. He has seen many of them attempting to video scenes with cellphones as they go by.
“We’ve had ambulances hit on the highway,” Deruyter said.
Rubbernecking and trying to capture footage for social media, he said, puts everyone in danger.
The cost of traffic incidents has increased by 85 percent in the last four years, according to the American Automobile Association. Called “societal costs,” the money lost is from earnings, medical bills, emergency services, property damage, and travel delays, according to ITD, and it usually amounts to about $126,000 for an injury crash.
In Kootenai County, approximately 861 crashes occur annually. Many of those crashes occur at the intersection of Prairie Avenue and U.S. 95, at the intersection of Prairie Avenue and Highway 53, and at Prairie Avenue and Highway 41, according to ITD.
Deruyter’s advice: “Put the cellphones away and pay attention.”
And avoid secondary collisions in the process, he said.