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That what I was pretty sure of, not applicable to Oklahoma except for school bus and first year drivers
wide berth
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Thanks
That what I was pretty sure of, not applicable to Oklahoma except for school bus and first year drivers
Nebraska has a similar law regarding police and emergency vehicles (change lanes if possible or slow down). However, I was "informally" informed that it also covers anyone stopped along the road, as in someone changing a flat tire or with other vehicle problems. That could be true, but unless there is someone there to prove it, or unless you smash into them, how would anyone ever know if you disobeyed the law?
I am not sure how enforceable this law is, however, I do believe that it is just simple common sense and logic based upon safety concerns for everyone, as well as courtesy, to do so with or without the law.
I personally always did so before it was a matter of law.
Now here is another matter to ponder along the same subject... You'll like this one!
Coming home from work at 4 am I and my carpool buddy observed a policeman in the process of a stop about 2 miles up ahead.
Since he was quite a long ways ahead, I wasn't sure if he was on our side of the median of a four lane (two lanes each direction) divided expressway or not.
When I got close enough to realize that he was, I slowed down, signaled and changed lanes.
Upon passing him, we observed that the "stoppee" had already received his citation and was long gone on down the road and the policeman was just sitting there finishing paperwork.
I traveled about a half mile beyond and signaled to reenter the normal traffic lane.
Keep in mind that this is 4 am in Nebraska.... There is NO ONE else on the road now for miles in either direction but this policeman and me.
Sure enough, on come the flashing lights and right on my tail he was.
I pulled over and he asked what we were doing at this time of the night. We informed him that we had just gotten off work and were heading home.
He asked if we worked around here locally.
I told him, "No, not usually, we typically work the higher quality neighborhoods where the folks have more money".
Nawh, just kidding! But that is what I would have LOVED to have told him.
We informed him where we worked and then he told us that he stopped me for:
"improper signaling and improper lane change according to state statute #135845618465"
According to this statute, you must signal your turn a minimum of 100 feet before turning off the road or changing lanes.
He did not ask for my license, my registration, my proof of insurance or to see the drugs and the body in the trunk or anything.
He just wanted to drive really fast so that he could catch up with a car that was nearly a mile ahead of him now and pull us over to inform us of the state statute. Ummm, sure!
The speed limit is 65, but at the time I changed lanes, I was only back up to 60 mph. So I calculated it out.
I timed my blinker signal, which I found flashes on/off once per second.
My blinker flashed exactly 3 times before I began to change lanes.
Traveling at 60 mph I would have covered 88 feet per second. 88 x 3 = 264 feet, well above the legal requirement.
I received no ticket or even a warning, of course, but it was just so asinine!
Do you know of ANYONE in this world who has eyesight good enough to see a car roughly a mile ahead or more, at 4 am, on a moon-dark night, with no street lamps, from the rear, change lanes too early?
I thought this story might amuse you or at least maybe make you think about what you do when you drive around in your state (or some other state for certain).
RADAR
I am not sure how enforceable this law is, however, I do believe that it is just simple common sense and logic based upon safety concerns for everyone, as well as courtesy, to do so with or without the law.
I personally always did so before it was a matter of law.
Now here is another matter to ponder along the same subject... You'll like this one!
Coming home from work at 4 am I and my carpool buddy observed a policeman in the process of a stop about 2 miles up ahead.
Since he was quite a long ways ahead, I wasn't sure if he was on our side of the median of a four lane (two lanes each direction) divided expressway or not.
When I got close enough to realize that he was, I slowed down, signaled and changed lanes.
Upon passing him, we observed that the "stoppee" had already received his citation and was long gone on down the road and the policeman was just sitting there finishing paperwork.
I traveled about a half mile beyond and signaled to reenter the normal traffic lane.
Keep in mind that this is 4 am in Nebraska.... There is NO ONE else on the road now for miles in either direction but this policeman and me.
Sure enough, on come the flashing lights and right on my tail he was.
I pulled over and he asked what we were doing at this time of the night. We informed him that we had just gotten off work and were heading home.
He asked if we worked around here locally.
I told him, "No, not usually, we typically work the higher quality neighborhoods where the folks have more money".
Nawh, just kidding! But that is what I would have LOVED to have told him.
We informed him where we worked and then he told us that he stopped me for:
"improper signaling and improper lane change according to state statute #135845618465"
According to this statute, you must signal your turn a minimum of 100 feet before turning off the road or changing lanes.
He did not ask for my license, my registration, my proof of insurance or to see the drugs and the body in the trunk or anything.
He just wanted to drive really fast so that he could catch up with a car that was nearly a mile ahead of him now and pull us over to inform us of the state statute. Ummm, sure!
The speed limit is 65, but at the time I changed lanes, I was only back up to 60 mph. So I calculated it out.
I timed my blinker signal, which I found flashes on/off once per second.
My blinker flashed exactly 3 times before I began to change lanes.
Traveling at 60 mph I would have covered 88 feet per second. 88 x 3 = 264 feet, well above the legal requirement.
I received no ticket or even a warning, of course, but it was just so asinine!
Do you know of ANYONE in this world who has eyesight good enough to see a car roughly a mile ahead or more, at 4 am, on a moon-dark night, with no street lamps, from the rear, change lanes too early?
I thought this story might amuse you or at least maybe make you think about what you do when you drive around in your state (or some other state for certain).
RADAR
I appreciate it when people move over. I hate being on the side of the road checking out state or municipal damages, especially the two lane variety with very little shoulder. In my line of work, I know many municipal officers and state troopers, so your story isn't all that surprising.
OSU,
Yeah. For anyone along the roadside, it just makes sense to give them a "wide berth", no matter who they are or what they are doing there. Construction workers, bridge inspectors, surveyors, police, EMT's, firemen, a guy changing his tire, a trucker checking his rig, someone reading a map, someone making a cell phone call, etc. Give them and yourself the safety margin that can you can legitimately afford. I totally agree with this law for all of these concerns.
RADAR
Yeah, it was "amusing"- and "not so."
Were you DWB?
In college, I was going home and giving a friend a ride along the way. Cop pulled me over. Asked if I had picked up a hitchhiker. I said no, we were from Ole Miss and both going home. This "irritated" him. Kept trying to get me to say I'd picked him up along the road. I stood my ground, perhaps not quite comprehending the full extent of what was going on. My friend stayed REAL QUIET and just stared straight ahead. The cop finally gave up, maybe after he saw my military ID next to my DL.
You see, my friend was black. Still is, I'd imagine.
Funny, how even after that and a couple other unpleasant events, I've always had LEO/security friends and even served as Sec'ty Treas of a police organization. Until I moved to NOVA. Too big a metro area, I guess.
TN has a mover over law that has been in place for years. It really should just be common sense & not a law, also it should apply for anyone on the side of the road, not just emergency vehicles.
I saw just the opposite effect today.I was waiting to make a left hand turn and had my turn signal on.A guy was approaching from the opposite direction with his turn signal on and something told me to take my time and wait for him to turn.Good thing I did because he never turned I would would have gotten broadsided.He was driving for who knows how long with his turn signal on.
A cop car does not have to have light bars on the roof to pull people over. Many around here just have small lights in the back window and lights in the grill.
Around here, Municipal vehicles have light bars unless they are unmarked, State Troopers don't have light bars, theirs are in the grills and windows.
Agreed. I didn't say on the roof. The point is they need to be lit on the front and the back if they are pulling people over. So you'd see that as you approach from the rear.
I believe this depends upon the jurisdiction. There have been instances of attacks on women by low lifes with lights behind grills.
I'd like to make this comment:
I don't know if all jurisdictions use the same light bars for their patrol vehicles, but here in Nebraska, both the state and the local law enforcement vehicles are equipped with lights which are brighter than the midday sun! My eyes are very sensitive to bright lights at night and I find that the lights they display to the rear of their vehicles are excessively bright and extremely disorientating.
Most of the Nebraska roads that I drive on have absolutely no road lighting, so it is very dark except for the lights of other vehicles. When I come up on a patrol officer at a traffic stop, I am nearly blinded by their rear facing lights. I wish they would make it mandatory that all patrol vehicles utilize a dimmer version and only yellow/orange lights to the rear instead of the pulsating 100,000,000 candle power red, white and blue signals. These are so doggone bright to me that I MUST slow down to a crawl just to discover where the heck the patrol car is on the road. I don't find this safe at all.
I know they have the options, I wish they would all use them. I also think that it would be best of they had yellow or orange lights to the rear that blinked in a pattern to show the traffic approaching from their rear which direction to pass. Most generally this would be on the left, but if there is an accident in the median and the patrol car is on the left lane/shoulder of a multi-lane expressway or something, the
light bar giving the indication to move to the right would be much more safe than just a bunch of random flashing and blinding lights.
RADAR
I don't know if all jurisdictions use the same light bars for their patrol vehicles, but here in Nebraska, both the state and the local law enforcement vehicles are equipped with lights which are brighter than the midday sun! My eyes are very sensitive to bright lights at night and I find that the lights they display to the rear of their vehicles are excessively bright and extremely disorientating.
Most of the Nebraska roads that I drive on have absolutely no road lighting, so it is very dark except for the lights of other vehicles. When I come up on a patrol officer at a traffic stop, I am nearly blinded by their rear facing lights. I wish they would make it mandatory that all patrol vehicles utilize a dimmer version and only yellow/orange lights to the rear instead of the pulsating 100,000,000 candle power red, white and blue signals. These are so doggone bright to me that I MUST slow down to a crawl just to discover where the heck the patrol car is on the road. I don't find this safe at all.
I know they have the options, I wish they would all use them. I also think that it would be best of they had yellow or orange lights to the rear that blinked in a pattern to show the traffic approaching from their rear which direction to pass. Most generally this would be on the left, but if there is an accident in the median and the patrol car is on the left lane/shoulder of a multi-lane expressway or something, the
light bar giving the indication to move to the right would be much more safe than just a bunch of random flashing and blinding lights.
RADAR
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