Not sure how many people have heard about Scott’s Law, but it is now effective in Colorado, California, Illinois, and is being actively pursued to be a law in several other states. Scott’s Law, also referred to as the "Move Over Law", has high violation fines and possible 1 month or more driver license suspension. Motorist who do not know about this law, who are pulled over and plead ignorance of this law are still given a ticket and a fine.

In my opinion, the concept of this law is great, because I think people should move over for emergency vehicles that have their lights on, or if people are walking around on the side of the road such as cops, firefighters, rescue workers, etc. Several times I have seen people gawking at accidents and unconsciously start to steer their cars towards the direction they are looking at, which can result in serious accidents. I can say, without a doubt, that several emergency workers have been injured or killed by motorist who did move over for emergency vehicles.

But, I do not believe that people should get pulled over and given a fine by a cop hiding along the road with his lights on, on the back side of a hill waiting for people who are speeding. Several times I have seen police sitting in their car, with their lights on doing nothing, and if someone does not move over for them, they will issue a ticket.  It’s also not cool that by violating this law, you will not be issued a warning if you plead ignorant of the law, even though several people do not know about Scott’s law, they will still receive a ticket and a fine.

So a word of advice for drivers, move over a lane if possible if you see a cop sitting on the side of the road with or without lights on. If you don’t, chances are you will not be happy with the out come if you get pulled over.

There is currently a few emails going around about officers that have pulled over drivers and gave them a ticket, even when the cop didn’t have his emergency lights on. Some have even had their license suspended because they did not move over for cops without their lights on.

One such example of an email going around.

This is just a warning about something that happened to my friend Denise.

She was driving on I-88 in the right lane. She was not speeding. There was an Illinois Police car sitting in the right shoulder with the lights on. The officer was sitting in the car. There was no one pulled over. She continued in the right lane and passed him. She was immediately pulled over by the cop and cited for violating Scott’s law which I found is a law that requires you to move over (if possible) to the left lane if an emergency vehicle is on the side of the road.

She pleaded ignorance of the law but was given a ticket and was assigned a Mandatory court date for which she appeared. She spoke to the judge and he asked her if she wanted a trial. She said that she could not testify that she did not commit the violation but that she was unaware of the law.  She pleaded guilty and was fined $100.00. She thought that was it.

Two weeks later she received a notice from the Secretary of State that her license has been suspended for 3 months because of this violation. She spoke to the Secretary of State office as no one ever mentioned that she would lose her license. As expected, they did not care and asked if she wanted a hearing on the matter or a hearing to ask for a license to drive to work, and said she could expect a hearing date in about 3 months.

Link to an article on Snopes.com about Move Over Law.