Traffic Week (Oregon): MOVE OVER! (law)

The Oregon State Police website has lots of information on the new “Move Over Law” (2009 ORS 811.147) (effective 1/1/10) including a flyer on the new law and on updates to the new law.

“Move over or it’ll cost you.

The Move Over Law (ORS 811.147) states that if you are driving up behind any type of police car or emergency vehicle pulled over on the roadside with emergency lights flashing, you must:

1) MOVE OVER into another lane.
2) If you can’t safely change lanes, SLOW DOWN.
3) In all cases, the driver must try to provide as much room as possible for the emergency
vehicle.” (link to OSP)

They have lots of other flyers with information on new traffic laws, including the cell-phone law and an overview of new traffic laws.

Read other Traffic Week and Traffic Law OLR blog posts.

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michael p. says:

April 16, 2010 at 9:44 pm

I have a question about Oregon's Move Over Law. There must be an official document describing enforcement policy, i.e., how an officer determines compliance by motorists. I don't know if it would be a state document, or a police agency document. I'd just like to read what they read before going out into the field, how they are trained.

Anonymous says:

February 13, 2012 at 7:18 pm

I had an interesting case in Corvallis where a motorcycle policeman stopped a car very near an intersection in a school zone. He was on the sidewalk speaking to the driver. I was in the right lane, preparing to turn right at the next block. There was another car just in front of me in the left lane, but it didn't occur to me that I should need to get over on such a slow residential street.

My speed was 15 mph or less as I drove past him just before a red light, and I was hugging the line on my left. He was in NO danger of being hit. If I had wanted to turn right at that intersection, I would have had to do so from the left lane (to be in compliance with this law, I guess). He hopped on his motorbike as I went by and put on his lights as he pulled in behind me. We pulled over on the other side of the intersection, in a bike lane. I was incredulous that I had actually violated this law, which am well aware of on any Oregon highway. This situation did not seem to fit the intent of the law.

The aspect that was most unsafe was when a boy on a bike had to pass in the travel lane, as car after car stayed in the same right lane passing me as the policeman wrote the ticket – ignoring this same law. I asked what he was going to do about them, and he just said he was sorry his buddy wasn't there to go after them too. Why were we all so unaware that this law applies to such slow residential streets? And, why would they choose to conduct a sting, I'm assuming, in a place where they are the ones creating an unsafe situation for others, certainly not unsafe for themselves.

Can you provide any legal comments on the law being applied in this way?