Ohio state troopers are reminding drivers that when they see flashing lights on the side of the road, they’re required to move over one lane to pass them. The law has been in place for a quarter of a century, but plenty of drivers are still violating it.
There were 62 crashes involving Ohio State Highway Patrol cruisers from 2021 till last year, with two deaths and 43 injuries. Troopers wrote 17,715 tickets for violations of the Move Over law last year.
"Every state in the United States has a version of the Move Over law. So at the end of the day, it's really not an excuse for someone to say they didn't know about this. This is in effect everywhere,” said OSHP Lt. Brice Nihiser.
Nihiser said snow piled up along roads and freeways makes traffic stops more dangerous, so it’s especially important for drivers to slow down and give troopers more room.
"This is really important during this time, especially when snow might be packed up toward a guardrail. Sometimes there's not a safe space to stop immediately," Nihiser said. "So just giving us that space to work, giving other people that space to work can help out a lot."
Ohio’s Move Over law was first passed in 1999 and covers first responders. It was expanded to include garbage trucks in 2018 – signed, ironically, by Republican Gov. John Kasich, who was cited on Rt. 315 in 2008 by Columbus police for not moving over when approaching a stopped emergency vehicle. He pleaded guilty.
A bill that passed the Ohio House unanimously in October would create a tiered penalty structure for violators of the Move Over law. House Bill 132 would impose fines of up to $1,000 for subsequent violations of the law in a single year, and would add a fine of up to $5,000 and the potential suspension of a driver's license if someone is injured. If a crash happens, it would add a fine as large at $10,000, a charge of vehicular homicide and suspension of a driver's license.
HB 132 is named for Philip Wigal, a Wayne County firefighter and EMT who was struck and killed by a semi as he responded to a crash on I-71 in 2022.
