Two people were taken to hospital after a collision involving a tow truck on the Trans-Canada Highway near Moncton.
Cpl. Tamara Patterson of the Southeast District RCMP says first responders were called to the collision before 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.
The tow truck operator was in the process of changing a tire for a motorist, according to police.
“When the tow truck operator was actually back at his vehicle getting a tool, he saw an oncoming vehicle, jumped onto the back of his own truck,” said Patterson.
“However, that oncoming vehicle clipped him and he suffered non-life threatening injuries.”
Police say the vehicle that struck the tow truck flipped over, and the driver was also taken to hospital for non-life threatening injuries.
Patterson says the outcome of the investigation will determine if any charges are going to be laid.
Both drivers have since been released from hospital.
While it’s unclear what specifically occurred during the collision, tow truck operators in the province are hoping they too, can be included in the ‘Move Over’ law.
“Most people don’t think of the side of the road as being a workplace… They think of a desk or a counter or… a school classroom as being their workplace,” says Andrew Aker, of the New Brunswick Towing and Recovery Group. “But for us, it’s on the side of the road.”
The legislation requires drivers to switch to the further lane and slow down when approaching emergency vehicles like police cruisers, ambulances, or firefighting vehicles, but not tow trucks.
The other Atlantic provinces include tow trucks in similar legislation.
“The problem we’ve been having for a long time is the traffic is close,” says Jean Boudreau, who operates a tow truck out of Moncton. “We’ve been trying to push for the move over law so we get that buffer zone so we can work and be safe.”
Alexandra Davis, a spokesperson for the New Brunswick Department of Public Safety, says the legislation is being reviewed.
“We are currently in the process of reviewing the Move Over provisions under the Motor Vehicle Act, and we are consulting with our counterparts in other jurisdictions regarding the issue,” she says.
Davis says the department urges motorists to move over for any vehicle stopped on the side of the road when it is safe to do so.
“As we don’t have it right now, we have to be extra, extra careful every time somebody goes on the highway,” says Boudreau.
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