Drivers reminded to ‘Move Over’
As a police officer, Sgt. Sean Fullerton can attest to how scary it is to be along the shoulder of Route 422 helping a motorist whose car has broken down.
It’s one of the most dangerous things a police officer does besides responding to domestic incidents or approaching an armed person, the Exeter Township policeman said.
At least in those situations, officers can protect themselves by maintaining a high level of situational awareness to react to threats.
“All the situational awareness in the world isn’t going to help you with cars creeping on you at 60 miles an hour,” Fullerton explained. “Sure, there’s tactics you can do with position of your car and doing different approaches to the vehicle, but at the end of the day you’re at the mercy of motorists on the highway.”
Fortunately, most drivers will move over — change lanes — when they see a police car with its flashing lights. Not so, however, when they see tow trucks.
In July 202, Tyler A. Laudenslager, a 29-year-old tow truck operator from Dauphin County, was fatally struck by a vehicle while working on a roadside assistance call on Interstate 78 in Berks County. That helped trigger legislation to increase penalties for drivers who do not pull into a different lane or slow down at an emergency response area.
In October 2020, Gov. Tom Wolf signed legislation that renamed the state’s Steer Clear law as the Move Over Law, which went into effect in April, doubling
the fine for a first offense to $500 and penalizing drivers two points on their license. The legislation also added enhanced penalties for bodily injury or death.
The revamped law extended the provisions to disabled vehicles and increased PennDOT’s responsibility for public awareness.
PennDOT partnered with Exeter Township and state police and a tow truck operator on Tuesday for a detail that was partly educational and partly enforcement.
Officials from the district safety office arranged to have a tow truck parked on the shoulder of eastbound Route 422, just past the Mount Penn exit in Exeter while a state trooper and township police officer watched from their hideout near the merge with Business Route 422.
Almost all vehicles shifted over to the left lane when they approached the tow truck, but this was a test in which the answers were written on the blackboard, so to speak. As drivers approached the Mount Penn exit ramp, a raspberry-colored sign reminded them to move over.
As they passed under the Neversink Road overpass, the tow truck positioned in front of a purportedly disabled car was clear to see. Whether driver’s took the appropriate action — change lanes if possible, or slow down up to 20 mph below the speed limit — was another question.
While a Reading Eagle reporter and photographer were on the scene, the driver of a car continued in the right lane past the tow truck in order to jump a few places in the single-file row of cars approaching the merge ramp. The car was flagged by an officer who gave the description over the radio. Flashing lights of a police car could be seen on the ramp.
Fullerton said citations were given for only egregious violations.
“Our goal here today,” he said. “is to first educate the public and be completely transparent about this law: Just move over. You must create the cushion of safety for a roadside responder. So we’re making sure we’re very clear about that.
“If it’s an emergency scene on the side of a road, and whether that’s flares or triangles behind a tractortrailer or whether that’s a tow truck driver assisting a broken-down motorist, or a police or fire vehicle, that vehicle must change lanes as they approach the scene or they must slow down up to 20 mph below the speed limit.”
In 2020, 46 emergency responders died as a result of crashes that happened while they attended to a roadside emergency in Pennsylvania, the highest annual total ever recorded, said Todd A. Leiss, traffic incident management coordinator for Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, who helped write the revised law.
This year, he said, there’s already been 56 roadside fatalities, with one of the most recent occurring Saturday night when an 80-year-old tow truck owner-operator was struck by a tractortrailer while on a roadside assistance call on Interstate 80 in Clinton County.
His job is to coordinate 112 fire companies, 67 ambulance companies and 22 tow truck operators that respond to incidents on the turnpike.
Besides his Turnpike Commission job, Leiss runs a statewide program called PennTime, the Pennsylvania Statewide Traffic Incident Management Group.
PennTime focuses on three major objectives: responder safety; safe, quick clearance; and prompt, reliable, interoperable communications. It also does a lot of educational outreach of its own.
“We’ve had a move over law in Pennsylvania since 2008,” Leiss said. “A lot of people say, ‘I didn’t know we had this law.’ Well, the law is in all 50 states. How do you not know?”