 quick incident clearance principle is a three-pronged solution: an authority removal statute, a driver removal or “move it” law, and a “move over/slow down” law.
Authority removal allows specific responders—usually law enforcement officers—to cause the removal from travel lanes of anything that impedes the free flow of traffic and generally holds those responders harmless from liability except when damage is caused by gross negligence.25 The most basic removal technique is simply driving a vehicle off the highway, followed by installing push bumpers on police cruisers or freeway service vehicles and allowing them to push disabled vehicles off the roadway. In more massive situations, an inoperable large truck or spilled cargo may be pushed off traffic lanes for removal after rush hour, so traffic flow can be restored in the meantime.
Driver removal or “move it” legislation “require[s] drivers involved in typically minor incidents to move their vehicles from the travel lanes, exchange information, and report the crash information as required.”26 When these laws are understood and obeyed by motorists, the involved drivers move to positions of greater safety, and the possibility of secondary crashes and congestion decline.
“Move over, slow down” laws “require drivers approaching a scene where emergency responders are present to either change lanes when possible and/or reduce speed.”27 Even though all states except Hawaii and excluding the District of Columbia have enacted “move over” laws,28 their provisions vary greatly among jurisdictions and tend neither to be publicized nor enforced, regrettably limiting the laws’ effectiveness. Since 2005, the IACP has supported uniformity in these statutes to better ensure the safety of law enforcement officers and other highway workers.29
7. Appropriately reduce lighting. An issue closely related to safe positioning is lighting. More lighting is not always better. Emergency-vehicle lighting “provides warning only and provides no effective traffic control,”30 and its current use does not provide drivers with unambiguous messages. Clearly, the lights of multiple emergency vehicles belonging to various disciplines operating at a single incident are far more likely to mask the message they are attempting to convey, confuse and distract motorists, and endanger responders’ safety than to provide effective direction and order. The MUTCD aptly recommends
[p]ublic safety agencies should examine their policies on the use of emergency-vehicle lighting, especially after a traffic incident scene is secured, with the intent of reducing the use of this lighting as much as possible while not endangering those at the scene. Special consideration should be given to reducing or extinguishing forward-facing emergency-vehicle lighting, especially on divided roadways, to reduce distractions to oncoming road users.
Because the glare from floodlights or vehicle headlights can impair the nighttime vision of approaching road users, any floodlights or vehicle headlights that are not needed for illumination, or to provide notice to other road users of an incident response vehicle being in an unexpected location, should be turned off at night.31
8. Promote uniformity. To encourage greater cooperation and coordination aimed at resolving incidents more effectively, efficiently, and safely, disciplines need to communicate with each other in understandable ways. Radio codes and other esoteric terms are counterproductive and generate confusion when the NUG’s prompt, reliable, interoperable communications principle is being advocated. Like the TRAA Vehicle Identification Guide described earlier, lane designation terminology, developed by the National Traffic Incident Management Coalition and the TIM Network in 2010, provides a means for all disciplines to describe uniformly and more precisely incident scenes.32 Moreover, the long-sought-after allocation of the D-Block spectrum to public safety, along with $7 billion in funding to build out a nationwide, interoperable, public safety wireless broadband network; a workab