An End of Year Reminder to MOVE OVER!

A week ago the Illinois State Police announced their cooperation with and adoption of Haas Alert's Safety Cloud solution to enable its Haas Alert-equipped law enforcement vehicles to alert motorists in appropriately equipped cars of the approach or proximity of those police vehicles. The purpose of the alerts is to encourage drivers to either pull over to let emergency responders pass or to give extra room for emergency response vehicles parked in the roadway.

The Illinois State Police are generally recognized as technology leaders for the national law enforcement industry. The ISP has the additional motivation of a specific local law - Scott's Law - that provides stiff penalties for drivers that fail to move over.

Named for Lieutenant Scott Gillen of the Chicago Fire Department who was killed 24 years ago on December 23rd by a passing motorist while responding to a crash scene, Scott's Law requires that all motorists move over when encountering stopped or disabled emergency vehicles displaying warning lights. Vehicles approaching an emergency vehicle with flashing warning lights must yield the right-of-way by reducing speed and making a lane change.

The law encompasses emergency vehicles - police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks - but also snowplows, construction vehicles, and some commercial cars and trucks. The penalties include a minimum $250 fine ($750 for a second violation) but can range as high as $10,000 with any resulting injury or death triggering a Class 4 felony charge.

So called Move Over laws are not unique to Illinois. The concept of an obligation to move over applies across all 50 U.S. states and requires drivers approaching a vehicle with flashing lights to:?

• change into a lane not immediately adjacent to the vehicle, or
• slow down to a reasonable speed if you’re unable to safely make a lane change.

Thanks to Haas Alert, the ISP alerts to the approach or proximity of an emergency vehicle will now appear in millions of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Mercedes-Benz (for drivers who have opted in to the Mercedes-Benz Haas Alert beta program), RAM, and Volkswagen onboard infotainment systems. (The alerts also appear in the Waze navigation app.) The Haas Alert Safety Cloud solution has been introduced to millions of vehicles thanks to over-the-air software updates.

The ISP is one of the first law enforcement agencies in the country to provide real-time GPS-based traffic information to help prevent what are commonly referred to as ‘Move Over’ crashes. To alert drivers to slow down and move over, ISP generates information about a crash, traffic stop, motorist assist, or debris in the roadway, which Haas Alert then pushes to its Safety Cloud for distribution to select vehicle infotainment systems. As drivers approach the GPS location of the ISP trooper, they will see a police icon and receive an alert to slow down and move over.

Since 2019, two ISP troopers have been killed and more than 60 others injured - but the trend line, since the enactment of Scott's Law has been positive with no fatalities in the past few years and fewer incapacitating injuries. The new notification system will help drivers see in advance the locations where ISP is handling a crash or other traffic activity, warning people to slow down and move over, the agency says. The Scott's Law dashboard (pictured above) which tracks year-to-year progress in mitigating crashes and fatalities can be found here: https://isp.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/340d57cd956c453da2de25af804c268d

Meanwhile, to the north in Michigan, Medstar Ambulance has also equipped its fleet with Haas Alert's Safety Cloud alerting solution. Medstar's nine-country service area in Michigan is integrated with local 911 operators. The activation of Haas Alert's Safety Cloud is made possible through an integration with ACETECH, a global supplier of software and vehicle solutions for emergency service providers. The ACETECH/Medstar integration requires no additional hardware.

Medstar says it is Southeast Michigan’s largest and most integrated EMS and mobile health provider, serving more than 190,000 patients annually throughout Bay, Clinton, Eaton, Genesee, Ingham, Lapeer, Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne counties. From its Medstar's Website: "Originally created in 1993 by two local hospitals committed to providing quality EMS for their communities, our stakeholder health systems have now grown to include Ascension-Michigan, Henry Ford Health System, and the McLaren Healthcare Corporation. No word on when Ford or General Motors might join Haas Alert's Safety Cloud integration.