Georgia is one of 49 states in the U.S. that has a “move-over” law.
Under it, drivers can be fined up to $500 if they don't move over a lane to give space to police, EMS crews, GDOT workers and other emergency personnel who are attending to an incident on the shoulder of a road. If drivers can't move over, they are required to slow down to a reasonable speed, the law states.
One driver in Alpharetta didn’t do either of these recently while passing an officer on Ga. 400 on July 4 and she ended up in jail.
After she sped by without changing lanes, officers caught up with the woman, Trisha Brake, and found that she had a suspended driver’s license and a warrant for failure to appear for a June 26 court date, according to a police report. Brake’s gray 2011 Ford Fusion was impounded and she was transferred to the Alpharetta Jail.
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"Most people believe that the most danger occurs to them from armed suspects and things like that, but in fact, traffic crashes are the No. 1 cause for officer or first responder fatalities," George Gordon, an Alpharetta Department of Public Safety spokesman, told Channel 2 Action News.
Brake spoke with Channel 2 and said she didn’t know about the move-over law, but will “give officers their space from now on.”
She is due in court on Aug. 15 to face the charges for the suspended license and failure to obey the move-over law.
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