Drivers: Move over — it’s the law

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Drivers around New Mexico are not moving to a different lane to pass law enforcement officers and other emergency vehicles who have stopped on the side of the road with emergency lights going.

This situation is no different in Cibola County, specifically Grants.

There is a “move over” law that was passed by the state Legislature in 2005 requiring drivers to pass all emergency vehicles, with lights on, in a lane away from the side of the road where police are stopped.

Grants Police Officer Steve Roberts said he is concerned. He said he has been in Grants for about 18 months and has nearly been hit about a dozen times by drivers who do not change lanes.

The videos where a third vehicle plows into the side of the police car, tearing off the door, injuring the officer and damaging the stopped civilian vehicle, are real and are shown again and again on police shows on TV, such as “Cops” or “Wildest Police Videos.”

One driver in Grants, Rita Patterson, who is originally from Crownpoint, told the Independent she has seen these types of shows on TV and because of that always moves to the lane away from where police have stopped vehicles.

“I was on my way home the other night and a Grants police officer had a car stopped on a two-lane road and there was no room to pull off the road, so they were partly on the lane I was driving,” she said.

“The sun was just going down and I could see oncoming traffic, who had their lights on, so I passed the police car, but I had to go into the oncoming lane to do that,” she said.

She said she was not faulting police because the road where she was driving had embankments going down the side of the road and no perceptible shoulder.

She said she has never heard of the move over law.
Roberts said in 2007, 81 officers were killed in the line of duty in some kind of traffic related accident.

He said the New Mexico law requires drivers to move over one lane away from the lane where any emergency vehicle has stopped, and has its emergency lights going.

The law is almost 3 years old and law enforcement officers, firefighters and paramedics are still observing a huge number of drivers who do not move over, according to information provided to the Independent.

Not moving over puts these officers and other emergency workers in peril, putting their lives at risk, Roberts said.

A survey completed recently shows that 71 percent of Americans have never heard of the move over law.

Of two other motorists in Grants who were interviewed by the Independent, one said she knows about the law and the other said he has not.

Tammy Jones, of Grants, said she has a friend who works for the state Department of Transportation who told her about the law.

She said she has always moved over because of safety. Otherwise, she said she has never heard of the law.
Michael Lopez, of Milan, said he has never heard of this law either.

He said he moves over every time he passes police or emergency vehicles that are stopped.

“I move over out of respect and for safety,” he said.

“You never know what is going to happen. I have seen people run after being stopped,” he said.

The fine for not moving over is $75 and is considered a moving violation and removes points from a person's driver's license.

Information: (505) 287-2985.

— To contact reporter Jim
Tiffin call (505) 285-4560
or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com.