The death of Cst. Frank Deschênes, a Nova Scotia RCMP officer who was struck along a New Brunswick highway as he helped change a motorist’s tire, is renewing calls for changes to slow down and move over laws in the Maritimes.
“It’s tragic,” said Doug Short, who owns Five Star Towing in Moncton.
“It should never have happened.”
Short says he worries every day that the same thing will happen to one of his drivers.
He has even placed decals on the back of each of his trucks that say “It’s the Law Move Over,” in the hope that it will help.
“I have family members that are working for me so that makes it a lot harder,” Short said.
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Both New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have slow down and move over laws requiring drivers to lower their speed and move over into the far lane when approaching emergency vehicles on side of the highway.
The problem, Short says, is the law does not apply to tow trucks and service vehicles.
“I have actually had the back-end of my truck hit a couple of times. I have had to jump between the truck I was loading and my tow truck,” he said.
The Canadian Automobile Association has been pushing both provinces for four long years to have their laws amended to include tow trucks, and while the association says talks have been promising the laws have yet to be changed in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia.
“We are aware that tow trucks are included in similar laws in provinces like Ontario and Quebec, and we are monitoring what is happening in those jurisdictions,” said Genevieve Mallet-Chaisson, Communications Officer with the New Brunswick Department of Public Safety, on Thursday.
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But even if the law is changed Short says the only ones who can truly save lives are drivers.
According to the New Brunswick department of public safety, from 2016 to 2017, there were 96 convictions for the unsafe passing of stopped emergency vehicles.
The Moncton fire department has resorted to defensively positioning their fire engines in front of accident scenes to act as a barricade said Fire Chief Eric Arsenault.
“They are large they are very visible and if there is a collision they are capable of absorbing an impact more so than a much smaller vehicle such as a police car,” he said.
Cst. Frank Deschênes was killed when his vehicle was stuck he was simply trying to help someone and Arsenault says it’s been a sad time for all first responders.
“If people would just drive attentively we would not be in situations like this,” he said.