Triple A Reminds Drivers To Move Over For Roadside Emergency Vehicles

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Minnesota's Move Over law passed 15 years ago. It makes it a crime for drivers not to move over a lane when someone is stopped on the highway. It's a way to make our roadways safter for emergency responders and roadside service providers.

Triple A of Minneapolis is trying to get out the word with their latest campaign: Move Over May.

In the last year alone, service providers at Triple A responded to more than 100,000 roadside assistance calls just within Hennepin County

"Working on the side of the road, doing their job, doing a job that many people, including myself, would find very dangerous, very fearful to be working within feet of cars that are going hopefully within the speed limit but often over the speed limit," Triple A spokesman Seamus Dolan said.

Dolan says they're trying to drive the point home -- that the Move Over law extends to all emergency vehicles stopped on the side of the road, and that includes tow trucks and their operators.

"Put yourself in that position -- would you personally want to replace your own flat tire on a busy highway?" Dolan said. "And yet this a a job, day-in and day-out, all-times-of-day, that towing operators go through."

Even though the Move Over law has been in place since 2001, Triple A's footage clearly shows a lot of Minnesota drivers either don't take it seriously, or have forgotten about it.

"It illustrates just how close these tow operators and zooming traffic, and speeding vehicles, are almost nearly hitting the towing operators who are, perhaps, preparing a vehicle, replacing a tire," Dolan said.

Tom Clarke spends a lot of time traveling Minnesota's highways. He says there's simply no reason for it.

"I try to get over, yeah. Because I don't want to be responsible for hitting somebody. That's terrible to think of," he said.

Dolan says they launched the campaign after hearing many of their roadside operators are concerned about whether or not they'll go home to their families at the end of the day, because they feel the job is just getting too dangerous.

Even in times of high congestion -- as it often is during the summer in Minnesota -- MnDOT says drivers should still slow down as much as possible.