Fail to move LEFT for stopped emergency vehicle

I was just given the $490 fine and 3 demerit points this weekend. I have been driving 40 years with never one demerit point and I feel very strongly that I was taken advantage of in this situation. I saw the police cruiser on the shoulder with no car with the cruiser - I slowed down before passing...I noticed the policeman had his head down and I considered it a non-emergency situation. Even my wife who told the policeman she knew the law did not think of telling me to move over to the left lane. So, the police cruiser takes off its lights and starts to tail me closely for quite a distance - I continue to try to keep to the speed limit and then almost a minute later, he puts on his lights and I immediately pull to the shoulder. At this point, I am totally at a loss to figure out why he's stopped me. When he gets to my car he tells me to put my rear windows down and then sees my daughter in the back and says I can put the rear windows back up - it was because they were tinted and he couldn't see in the back. So now I'm thinking he's suspecting something like drug use, that's how unsure I am about being stopped ! He then goes back to the cruiser and spends a long time before he returns to my car. He explains the offence and I honestly tell him that I know everything about the laws of moving over for emergency vehicles but I've never heard that you had to move over to the left lane on a highway (if it's safe - to me that's is a screwed up addendum to that specific rule - I'm too busy slowing down when approaching the stationary vehicle and then concentrating on changing lanes, to me, is more of a safety concern than what I did).

I think this was entrapment because it was a non-emergency situation set up to be construed as an emergency just to see if motorists could be caught. To me the offence is based on your conscious disregard for a criminal situation and in this case, I did everything to honour the intent of the law. This deserved a warning...clear and simple....based on my record, I think I would have learned my lesson from a warning. Getting a ticket only gives me contempt for those in position of authority. That's the problem with our society. We aren't a good judge of intent - or at least I was unlucky enough to get an officer that couldn't (or wouldn't) provide that insight.

Markham123 wrote:

I was just given the $490 fine and 3 demerit points this weekend. I have been driving 40 years with never one demerit point and I feel very strongly that I was taken advantage of in this situation. I saw the police cruiser on the shoulder with no car with the cruiser - I slowed down before passing...I noticed the policeman had his head down and I considered it a non-emergency situation. Even my wife who told the policeman she knew the law did not think of telling me to move over to the left lane. So, the police cruiser takes off its lights and starts to tail me closely for quite a distance - I continue to try to keep to the speed limit and then almost a minute later, he puts on his lights and I immediately pull to the shoulder. At this point, I am totally at a loss to figure out why he's stopped me. When he gets to my car he tells me to put my rear windows down and then sees my daughter in the back and says I can put the rear windows back up - it was because they were tinted and he couldn't see in the back. So now I'm thinking he's suspecting something like drug use, that's how unsure I am about being stopped ! He then goes back to the cruiser and spends a long time before he returns to my car. He explains the offence and I honestly tell him that I know everything about the laws of moving over for emergency vehicles but I've never heard that you had to move over to the left lane on a highway (if it's safe - to me that's is a screwed up addendum to that specific rule - I'm too busy slowing down when approaching the stationary vehicle and then concentrating on changing lanes, to me, is more of a safety concern than what I did).

I think this was entrapment because it was a non-emergency situation set up to be construed as an emergency just to see if motorists could be caught. To me the offence is based on your conscious disregard for a criminal situation and in this case, I did everything to honour the intent of the law. This deserved a warning...clear and simple....based on my record, I think I would have learned my lesson from a warning. Getting a ticket only gives me contempt for those in position of authority. That's the problem with our society. We aren't a good judge of intent - or at least I was unlucky enough to get an officer that couldn't (or wouldn't) provide that insight.

You sound like you've been so hard done by. But you admit yourself you broke the law. The law doesn't state that the emergency vehicle must be in an emergency situation, and it doesn't include a view into the interior of the police vehicle to ascertain if an emergency situation is indeed taking place. The officer likely just only finished another vehicle stop and was finishing up the paperwork when you passed him and committed the infraction.

The problem with our society is that people don't take responsibility for their actions and have a bizarre sense of entitlement.

The law was created to make it safer for emergency personnel to conduct business roadside on a regular basis.

If this situation is enough to give you contempt for a person in a position of authority, then you're a very old child.

Also, I believe it's 5 demerit points and not 3.

For someone to reply to my post and then post inaccurate information, you probably shouldn't be replying - the number of demerit points is 3

If I'm typical of society's problems, this world is definitely screwed up - I'm right up there with drunk drivers and hit-and-run offenders. I wonder if some police officers ever see themselves in the position they've put others in - I'm pretty sure they would have a different viewpoint. The law should (and normally does) place situational information into account. That's why the penalty for murder is different whether it was pre-meditated or in self defense. You can call me whatever you like, but you know that some people are getting off with just a warning for the same offence - I know one of them. Whatever entitlement I'm expecting, some are getting it !

It should be very obvious you need to move to the far lane for anybody on the shoulder I once had to change a tire on the 401 before the shoulder was widened and had the car that was very stable on the jack with flashers on get blown off by a passing truck.I had just pulled the wheel off.The car hit the wheel and smacked me the face so hard it broke a few bottom teeth.

To the other extreme.Last year on a dark relatively narrow stretch of E.C ROW expressway in Windsor I came upon an OPP pulled on to the shoulder with the left wheels on the line doing radar in light rain.Both i and the car passing me were well under the speed limit but passing car panicked and left the road for a good 50 ft on the inside median.The police car had absolutely no lights on with the back end blacked out except for 6" reflective tape spelling out police.Farther down the road the other driver followed me into the a Tim Horton's and we called the detachment.The officer we spoke to was very helpful and promised to look into it.To this day I have not seen a police car there again.

I would really like to know why the OPP went back to the old paint?In fact I think I remember they changed it for this very reason.You can't see them in the dark at 100 or even 80kmh with no lights and especially In bad conditions in time to react in traffic.