Early Tuesday evening, April 18th, an Oregon State Trooper stopped a commercial motor vehicle on Interstate 5 in Roseburg.
After exiting his vehicle and engaged in the traffic stop outside of his patrol car, a pickup, traveling at freeway speeds, struck the back of the parked patrol car behind the commercial motor vehicle.
The pickup struck the patrol car as well as the back of the commercial motor vehicle, overturned, coming to a stop on it’s driver side in the slow lane of I-5.
There were no reported injuries and after an investigation of the crash scene, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office cited the driver for careless driving and failure to move over for an emergency vehicle, a violation of ORS 811.147.
The Move Over Law, (ORS 811.147), states that when approaching any type of emergency vehicle, tow truck, or roadside assistance vehicle which is stopped on the roadside with emergency lights activated, you must move over into another available lane, if you can’t safely change lanes, slow down to a speed that is at least 5 mph below the posted or designated speed of the roadway. In all cases, the driver must try to provide as much room as possible for the emergency vehicle, tow truck, or roadside assistance vehicle.
