The Washington State Patrol (WSP) will soon keep a closer eye on drivers not respecting the space of parked emergency vehicles in North Central Washington.

As part of the "Move Over, Slow Down" campaign, an emphasis patrol is planned for April 27th when troopers will be ticketing violators of emergency work zones. That's 200 feet of roadway before and after the parked emergency vehicle.

"(Violators) will slam on their brakes right next to one of our cars. And that creates almost a worse situation. They need to slow down way prior to coming up to us, not right on my bumper." WSP Trooper Collin Cumaravel said.

Last year more than 113 patrol cars that were parked alongside the road were struck by drivers neglecting to slow down or move into the left lane.

"We see this violation pretty consistently especially with the tow operators when they have crashes, how close people drive to them is astonishing," Cumaravel said. "All of those workers are doing that job to keep traffic moving and to reduce the amount of collisions that we have. Those people have families. We're not robots. We're still people out there."

Trooper Cumaravel says violators often have their heads down when approaching parked emergency vehicles.

"I'm a driving instructor for the State Patrol. And that's one of the problems we train our officers away from is looking farther forward so you can predict how you should be driving down the road." Trooper Cumaravel said.

When spotting emergency parked vehicles from a distance, the law says you're required to move over one lane. If that's not possible, you're asked to slow down by at least 10 miles per hour below the posted speed limit.

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