A recent 2,700-mile round trip to California provided an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with the villains of the open road:
- Speeder. I’m talking about those who score over 100. These are also the fast multi-lane changers. They must think they are in Formula 1.
- Camper in the left lane. At one point on I-5 in the Central Valley, 20 to 30 cars were piled in the passing lane. Only two were in the right lane. If everyone claims to come over, no one will pass.
- Tailgater, the scourge that will always be with us. If we all increased our following distances, there would be no traffic jams. Try telling these people that.
But these violations are only committed by a few drivers. We’re here to talk about a bad trait that’s almost universal:
Nobody moves over.
That said, few seem to pay attention to the move-over laws. These laws, which exist in every state, require drivers to move across a lane to create a safe distance from police, towing services, firefighters or emergency responders working on the side of the road. Some states even require you to move for literally every vehicle on the shoulder.
That makes perfect sense when you consider the 70 mph delta between you and a stationary object – an object that people could jump out of.
Anecdotally, there isn’t much movement. This is a nuisance to me and I have been watching the streets for a long time. Is it ignorance? Apathy?
AAA blames this on widespread ignorance, as does the NHTSA, which estimates that “one-third of Americans are unaware of these laws.” This is despite AAA and state agencies conducting PSA campaigns. But if ignorance explains a third of drivers, that means most of us know about the law but casually ignore it.
Occasionally good intentions are ruined by idiots: a month ago I signaled a lane change and someone accelerated to actively block it. The officer on the shoulder ahead had his flashing lights on, so the purpose of the lane change was pretty clear.
On this trip to California, no one came across a patrol car with one of those sequential amber light bars literally signals you to move to the left.
Don’t have room to move? Then the law says to drive slower. Maybe some do, but it’s not obvious.
(This just on Sunday evening as I finish this article: Two police officers were dealing with an accident involving three cars at night, one in a ditch. They watched a dozen cars go by, not one moving. A few slowed down, slightly. Undoubtedly too stupid.
Dismal statistics
Hundreds of police officers have died in vehicle accidents over the past few decades, according to various federal data sets for different time periods. It’s not clear how many of these occurred on the side of the road when they were hit inside or outside their patrol car. However, a 2019 report included this exact detail: 16 officers were killed on foot by vehicles that year. So that gives you an idea. Sixteen officials with 16 families.
The AAA, which was instrumental in passing the move-over laws, has been on a jihad on the issue for years, not only because of the danger it poses to police but also to roadside responders like AAA’s tow truck drivers. In a 2021 report, AAA said 14 tow drivers had been killed so far this year at the time of writing – and that was as recently as August. In a report this year, AAA concluded that the number of deaths among road workers could be three times higher than known because they are often referred to simply as “pedestrians” in police reports.
A related problem is highway work zones, where lanes are often closed and traffic is restricted, making crossing impractical and a speed limit the only option. We all know these zones with the strong signage and the subtle multipliers – and yet we often see these speed limits being ignored. The need for these speed limits becomes clear when you hear the federal statistics. They are alarming:
- From 1982 to 2020, 29,493 people (approximately 776 per year) died in workplace accidents. These are workers, drivers, passengers, bystanders.
- The year 2002 was the worst: 1,186 people died in work zones that year. Since then, the number of deaths has steadily declined to an annual average of 635 between 2008 and 2014. However, they then increased to an average of 794 over the period 2015-2020.
- Given what we know about increased speeding in the years following the pandemic, it will come as no surprise that this number has increased.
Summer is coming, it’s work zone season. You will encounter many potential dangers in the coming months.
“We’re seeing more speeding and erratic behavior.”
In my state alone, ten people died in work zone accidents last year, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation. If you multiply that by 50 states, the death numbers mentioned above seem plausible. Beyond fatalities, there were 1,676 workplace accidents in 2019, according to WSDOT. This was followed by a decline during the pandemic, but last year the number of workplace accidents rose again to 1,228. However, this is only the case in one state.
“Far too many of our workers have had accidents, serious injuries and even deaths in our work areas. It’s hard to find a crew that hasn’t been injured or suffered numerous accidents,” said Christina Werner of WSDOT. “Most road workers can report incidents where they have had to take action to prevent a tragedy caused by drivers entering work areas.
“We’re seeing more speeding and erratic behavior in work zones – putting everyone at risk.”
The Washington State Patrol told me its troopers have stopped 12,547 drivers for violations in the past five years. Which didn’t sound like too many, probably just a drop in the ocean of violators who weren’t stopped. It turns out to be a difficult violation to enforce.
“Often these violations are experienced by our officers or other law enforcement officers while they are in the middle of a traffic stop or at the scene of an accident,” said WSP Sgt. Chelsea Hodgson. “Unless there is another unit active in the area capable of observing and then making contact with the driver, many of these cases simply go unobserved and go unenforced because the incident in question needs to be managed. If a second unit is on scene and the offense is serious enough, they can and often will contact the driver who failed to pull over or slow down.”
Head on a swivel
There shouldn’t be any need to get a ticket. The need to move is obvious, it’s common sense.
So why doesn’t everyone do it? A common mistake when driving is simply not looking far enough down the road – most of us could probably do better. Maybe people just don’t recognize these situations in time to get over them. That’s the charitable explanation, “just don’t care” is the less kind one.
AAA’s advice is: “Stay alert, avoid distractions and focus on the task of driving.” Then give it a wide berth.
Have a nice summer everyone.