OPP urge motorists to obey Move Over law ahead of Civic Day long weekend

WATCH ABOVE: Police officers are urging you to move over when you see an emergency vehicle pulled over on the side of the road. Cindy Pom reports.

TORONTO – Ontario Provincial Police are reminding motorist to obey the Move Over law ahead of the Civic Day long weekend.

The law requires motorists to slow down when approaching an emergency vehicle parked on the side of the highway when its lights are activated and to move over one lane if possible.

Failure to do so can result in fines from $400 to $2,000 and three demerit points for a first offence.

Police are conducting an education campaign on Friday at Canada’s Wonderland along with the husband and daughter of an OPP officer who was killed during a traffic stop in June 2000.

Sergeant Margaret Eve of the Chatham-Kent Detachment was investigating a vehicle in a suspected armed robbery near Windsor with two other officers when a tractor-trailer crashed into all three police cruisers.

Sgt. Eve was critically injured and transported to hospital where she died two days later.

She was the first female OPP officer to die in the line of duty.

The other two officers were seriously injured in the incident but survived.

“I had to do the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I would not wish this on anybody. I had to tell a three-year-old little girl and a six-year-old young man that mommy would not be coming home anymore,” Eve’s husband John said at a news conference.

New provincial road rules coming into effect this fall now includes tow trucks stopped at the side of the highway.

OPP have laid 763 charges so far this year under its move over law.

“When you see someone pulled over with their four-ways on and they’re trying to change a flat tire, pay attention. Please safely move over,” said John.