Nearly eight years ago, at the urging of police officers statewide, legislators passed the “Move Over” law, requiring drivers to give emergency vehicles at least one lane of cushion or at least to slow down when they are on the roadway.
Police say drivers often ignore the law, later claiming they had no idea it existed.
Marietta had a frightening example of that early Tuesday morning, when an officer pulling over to handle a car on fire along Interstate 75 was rammed from behind by a pickup. The impact totaled the police car, but the officer only had minor injuries. Minutes later, a fire truck arrived to help both the officer and the original car fire and it was broadsided by a car that drove into the scene.
Police believe the driver of the second car was driving under the influence. Stephanie Newson, 44, was charged with DUI, failure to move over and open container.
Officer Nick Serkadakis says he’s had plenty of close calls while patrolling with Marietta’s traffic unit. He later showed us video of the fire truck being hit taken from another patrol car, and told us the city can handle losing a police car and repairing a truck, but it was almost worse than that.
An officer had been walking in the sedan’s path only moments before.
“It could have been a lot worse,” Serkadakis said. “In this case it was only property that was damaged but it could have been an officer’s life.”
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