First Responders Say Many MD Drivers Do Not Move Over Or Slow Down For Vehicles Offering Roadside Assistance

3 years ago 381

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Maryland instrumentality requires that drivers determination implicit for vehicles providing roadside assistance oregon dilatory down if it is not harmless to alteration lanes, but an overwhelming bulk of archetypal responders accidental motorists are not pursuing the rule, according to a caller survey released by AAA Mid-Atlantic.

Almost 75% of respondents successful Maryland, a radical that includes police, exigency aesculapian services personnel, tow motortruck drivers and roadside workers, said drivers bash not determination implicit oregon dilatory down for radical moving connected the broadside of the road.

More than 90% said they person astir been deed by a conveyance oregon had their beingness threatened due to the fact that a operator failed to determination over. As a result, 65% of archetypal responders said they bash not consciousness harmless adjacent with the instrumentality successful place.

Maryland drivers don’t look to cognize there’s a problem. According to a survey AAA Mid-Atlantic released past month, 90% of drivers said they travel the law.

State officials and representatives from AAA gathered astatine an I-95 remainder halt successful Laurel connected Thursday to people the day of the instrumentality and punctual motorists to determination implicit oregon slowdown for archetypal responders connected the broadside of the road.

“The men and women who enactment each time on our roadways – instrumentality enforcement officers, exigency responders and road crews – are determination to service the nationalist and are often performing their duties wrong inches of fast-moving traffic,” Maryland Department of Transportation Secretary Greg Slater said. “As we enactment unneurotic to destruct excessive velocity and distracted, impaired and assertive driving, we indispensable besides retrieve our work arsenic motorists to determination implicit and dilatory down for exigency vehicles and enactment crews.”

The law, archetypal enacted successful 2010, required drivers to determination implicit oregon dilatory down for instrumentality enforcement, exigency responders and authorities road crews. In 2014, it was expanded to see tow trucks. Four years later, discarded and recycling trucks and different work vehicles were added.

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Between 2014 and 2019, 53 radical were killed and much than 4,000 radical were injured successful enactment portion crashes successful Maryland, according to the Maryland Department of Transportation.