Dan Noll Discusses Illinois Scott’s Law
By Dan Noll on January 24th, 2014 in Criminal Defense Lawyer, DUI Law, Traffic Attorney
Dan Stratford: The other thing the article refers to is Scott’s Law, briefly, what is Scott’s law?
Dan Noll: Scott’s Law was a law passed in 2002 in honor of a Chicago Fireman. He was killed on the side of the road in Chicago, Illinois and they passed a law in 2002 requiring that when emergency vehicles are on the side of the road you have to move over. It’s also known as the Move Over law. And it says that if you’re in the right lane and you see an emergency vehicle, you need to go to the left lane to give that officer or whoever some space so they’re not injured. The other requirement is if you cannot get to the other lane you have to significantly reduce your speed, again in an attempt for officer’s safety.
In tying this into this Thanksgiving right now, Dan, the Illinois State Police has initiated Operation Kyle, that’s K-Y-L-E. That was in response to an Illinois State Trooper who was killed last year at this time on the side of the road. Operation Kyle is looking at seatbelt violations and Scott’s Law violations. Scott’s Law violations are very, very serious as it relates to your driver’s license, which could be suspended, and fined. A person can be fined up to $10,000 for a Scott’s Law citation. So, it’s best to play it safe. Move over, it’s just common courtesy for the officer’s that are out there doing their job, give them space, slow down, and make sure you’re not drinking and driving and everybody will have a good holiday season.
Dan Stratford: It sounds like that goes hand-in-hand with their going to be more aggressively pulling people over so they need to more aggressively enforce that law. It also says to me that they’re looking for any reason to pull you over. One reason they could pull you over is because you didn’t get out of the way, didn’t obey Scott’s Law essentially, and it will probably be in the holiday’s other officers who could see you do that and could quickly pull you over, I would guess.
Dan Noll: Correct. They’ve actually done stings on I-55 where they’ll just have an officer on the side of the road with their lights on, and then they’ll have a slew of Illinois State Police cars just pulling people over. The officer who’s waiting, doing something on the side of the road will be calling to the other officers and just start pulling people over and they’ll get 5-10 people at a time. And those are very, very serious traffic citations.