OLDS — Protective services officials in the town are warning residents that as of March 1, fines will double for motorists who go faster than 60 kilometres an hour (km/h) when passing emergency crews on highways.
On divided highways like Highway 2, that applies to all vehicles in all lanes going in the same direction.
In smaller single-lane highways where vehicles go in opposite directions, all will have to go 60 (km/h) or less in accident or construction zones.
Fines for going faster will range from $163 to $991, Olds RCMP Sgt. Greg Beach warned in an interview.
Senior peace officer Paul Wright noted that the new law applies when passing not only police, fire and ambulance vehicles, but now also tow trucks, maintenance vehicles and snow plows -- “basically any vehicle that has a emergency flashing light on,” he said.
Wright noted that before the new law was passed, vehicles had to go 60 km/h or less only if they were in the lane directly adjacent to an accident scene or construction area.
Beach said emergency crews in Olds have seen just how dangerous it can be out there.
"We can probably go back in November when we had that big car pileup on (Highway) 2. We had emergency vehicles out there and people just weren’t slowing down,” he said.
“Actually one of our emergency vehicles was hit three or four times. Luckily there was no one in it, but they just weren’t slowing down, right? And the conditions were terrible.”
Wright pointed out it’s not just first responders that are in danger at an accident scene.
People involved in collisions may be out of their vehicles, coping with what just happened and/or talking to police or ambulance crews.
“It’s for everybody’s safety,” Wright said.
“It’s always been an issue, I think. The vast majority of people, they do reduce the speed, but it just becomes dangerous as everybody kind of moves from that immediate lane to the second or third lane to try and go,” he added.
“Now this hopefully will make it safer for everybody, really, for these accidents or the work construction sites.”
