If you’re a paramedic, police officer or firefighter, then you put your life on the line everytime you get in your ambulance, squad car, or fire truck.
There are all the obvious ways emergency service people put their life on the line, such as by going into a dangerous area where there can be fire and gunshots. But there are other ways these public heroes can put their lives in danger, specifically when police, paramedics, and firefighters are in their vehicles.
These service people often find themselves on the shoulder of the road — the area of a highway designated for vehicles to stop in the case of an emergency. Police officers find themselves on the shoulder of the highway often when pulling over speeders and documenting accidents, and paramedics and firefighters find themselves on the shoulder of the road tending to accident victims and cleaning up car accident debris.
This can make police officers, paramedics, firefighters, and their vehicles sitting ducks for being hit, clipped or sideswiped by passing cars coming on the right side of the highway. It’s a shame this is even an issue, considering the “Move Over Law” requires all drivers to give stopped emergency vehicles a one-lane buffer.
The origin of this law was actually conceived in South Carolina when paramedic James D. Garcia was struck and injured when tending to an accident scene on January 28, 1994, in Lexington. Surprisingly, Garcia was found at fault in the accident. This led to new laws to protect emergency service people tending to accidents on the shoulder of the road.
But this hasn’t stopped drivers all across South Carolina from ignoring these laws and continuing to drive on the same side of the shoulder while police officers, paramedics, and firefighters are tending to accidents. The Greenville News and Anderson Independent-Mail recently published an article detailing how many South Carolina drivers break the Move Over law without realizing that they are breaking the law.
Ignorance is no excuse for breaking law and it doesn’t keep South Carolina drivers from breaking the law either. If you’re a police officer, firefighter or paramedic and you or your vehicle have been clipped on the shoulder of the road, then call Greenville Car Accident Attorney David R. Price, Jr. today. Your consultation is no-obligation and free.