Police are urging drivers to pull over and stop as soon as they can safely do so when they see emergency vehicles on the road.
Drivers should pull to the right when they see emergency vehicles or hear their sirens and failure to do so can result in fines and court appearances, warn New Glasgow Regional Police.
“If you ignore the law you put lives in danger, because we’re trying to get to the scene or we are at the scene,” said Const. Ken MacDonald.
He said that drivers in the New Glasgow area often do not pull over to let emergency vehicles pass by safely.
When asked why, MacDonald said that drivers can be distracted, or perhaps cannot hear emergency sirens as they play their music loudly.
“Our officers are seeing more of that,” said MacDonald.
A second issue is drivers who fail to move over when they see an emergency vehicle on the roadside with its flashing lights on.
MacDonald said that drivers should move to the left lane if there’s space to do so.
If it is a two-lane road, Nova Scotia law says that drivers must slow down to either 60 km/h or stay at the posted speed limit when passing emergency vehicles, whichever is lower.
Failing to move over can have lethal results. Last September, a Nova Scotia RCMP officer was hit and killed by a passing vehicle in New Brunswick after helping people in a stranded vehicle fix a flat tire.
While highway traffic stops or assistance calls can be nerve-wracking for officers, MacDonald said that drivers still had to move over or slow down when driving in town.
“You can feel the wind on your back,” said MacDonald of drivers who zip past officers standing on the roadside.
Luckily, no NGRP officers have been injured or killed by such behaviour in recent years, said MacDonald.
