Tell Mel: Florida law says move over for emergency vehicles
When you approach an emergency vehicle – a police car, fire truck, ambulance or even a tow truck – that is on the side of the road with its lights flashing you have two legal options:
- If you are on a multilane road you can move over.
- If you are on a two-lane road or can’t safely move left on a multilane road, you must slow down to at least 20 mph below the posted speed limit.
If you don’t exercise one of these two options, you can be stopped and ticketed. The penalty is a fine and three points on your license. Law enforcement issued 31,078 citations in 2014 to drivers who violated the Move Over Act.
The second consequence of not following the law is that you could hit, kill or injure a law enforcement officer or emergency responder.
The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles reports that there were 161 crashes in Florida in 2014 because drivers didn’t move over for emergency vehicles. And you know who the biggest culprits are when it comes to violating this law? Older drivers.
That’s right. It’s not kids. The violators are, for the most part, drivers whose licenses were issued prior to the law being passed in 2002.
Fortunately, no one died in the move-over crashes reported to the state. But I encourage you to watch the video I’ve posted online with this column. I don’t know how that trooper wasn’t killed. It just wasn’t his time to go, I guess. That doesn’t mean the next trooper will be so lucky.
So remember to pay attention and move over. The few seconds you lose reaching your destination could save you money and more importantly, someone’s life.
Lawyer’s defense
A couple months ago I wrote a column about Bill Edy, an elder law attorney who lost his license to practice law in Florida.
Even though I left messages with Edy over several days, he didn’t get back to me before the article was published. But he contacted me after it ran and gave me his side.
Edy said that although he consented to permanent disbarment, he did it not because he was guilty of stealing from clients but because it cost too much to fight it.
The Florida Bar case against him had already cost $6,000 in lawyer fees, he said. “Do I want to spend $40,000 I don’t have, or let it all go away?” Edy said he asked himself. He only intended to practice one more year, he’s 75 and has some health problems, so to keep on wouldn’t have made sense, he reasoned.
Edy said he was a victim of rogue employees. He provided me with the depositions the two gave to investigators and I agree, parts of their stories don’t add up.
But I still believe Edy was responsible for what went on his law office. And that’s why he’s not practicing anymore. He has been charged with second-degree felony larceny, but neither of the two employees have been charged.
After the article on Edy was published, a number of people contacted me regarding the work Edy had done on their wills, trusts and estate plans. The issues with the Florida Bar concerned his finances and control over his employees. They never questioned his legal competence. So I wouldn’t lose sleep over the quality of his work. That said, it isn’t a bad idea to have a lawyer check over your estate plan every few years because things can change. Not keeping your estate in order can mean a mess for those you leave behind.
Contact: TellMel@news-press.com; 239-344-4772; 2442 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Fort Myers, FL 33901. facebook.com/TellMel and Twitter @tellmel. Sign up for the Tell Mel newsletter at news-press.com/newsletters
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