Saturday is National Move-Over day.
Triple-A says the day is to remind motorists in Pennsylvania to move over and slow down when they see a vehicle with flashing lights or emergency crews on the scene of an incident.
On average, 24 emergency responders are killed by vehicles each while responding to incidents, according to Triple-A.
“The dangers associated with working along the roadside are real, but deaths like these can be avoided if drivers will pay close attention to what is going on around them,” says Mike Hoshaw, vice president of automotive services, AAA East Central. “Slowing down and moving over is not only the law, it can also be the difference between life and death for these workers.”
A good example of how dangerous not slowing down near a disabled vehicle or accident was caught on camera by KDKA Radio’s Marty Griffin on Friday morning.
Around 4:30 Friday morning, Griffin was on his way to a remote for the Big K Morning Show when he came across an accident on the Parkway East just outside the Squirrel Hill Tunnels toward Monroeville.
The vehicle can be seen in the video turned the wrong way after the accident in the left-hand passing lane.
At about the :30 mark of the video, a dark-colored vehicle quickly approaches the accident scene, quickly puts on its brakes and swirls around the damaged vehicle to continue on its way.
Luckily, the car didn’t add to the accident, making the situation more serious.
Griffin checked with those involved and they told him they were okay.