An incident in Northern Alberta is prompting RCMP to remind drivers of the rules when it comes to passing emergency vehicles on highways in the province.  

On November 23rd at around 9:30 pm, Beaverlodge RCMP were called to assist with directing traffic while a vehicle was being removed from the ditch on Highway 43 near Demmitt.

A driver approaching the scene failed to observe the emergency lights, attempted to go around the police vehicle and struck the rear driver side corner of the police car, damaging both the offending vehicle and the RCMP vehicle.

The 30-year-old female driver is facing charges of Careless Driving.  

Fortunately, no one suffered any injuries in the incident, but it's led police to remind motorists of the dangers, and possible consequences, of passing emergency vehicles.

Constable Dan Martin of the Airdrie RCMP says passing emergency vehicles of any sort on the highways can be dangerous.

"If you see emergency vehicles pulled over, it could either be a police car, a tow truck, construction workers, any type of emergency vehicle with their lights on, they've placed those lights on for a reason, usually indicating that they're outside working.  Vehicles in the lane closest to them are required by law under the traffic safety act to slow down to 60 kmh."

Martin says there are obvious reasons why traffic needs to slow down.

"If something happens and a body pops in front of them they can stop in a reasonable amount of time."

To explain, Martin uses Highway 2 as an example.  "The other two lanes, the fast lane on the far left and the middle lane, traffic can still flow at normal speeds but the lane closest to where the emergency vehicle is working slows down to 60 kmh.  The speed limit, say if the vehicle passing by the emergency vehicle is doing 110 kmh, that would be 50 kmh over the speed limit and the speeding fine actually doubles due to it being an emergency vehicle."

Martin says it's something that the Airdrie Traffic Enforcement Section sees happening far too often.

"Obviously, here in the city, we have slower speed limits so it's not as big of a concern but the Sheriffs and RCMP that are working on the highways see it quite regularly and ticket for it almost daily.  It's quite unfortunate and maybe the public knowledge isn't out there but we do try to remind motorists as often as possible to slow down for emergency vehicles."

When Martin was asked if slowing down when passing emergency vehicles shouldn't simply be common sense, he replied, "You would think that it would be common sense for safety reasons, but as we know, common sense isn't so common anymore.   We want to remind motorists to slow down or move over and give those emergency workers lots of room to work."

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