"Move Over Act" takes effect

New York State's "Move Over Act" took effect on January 1. The law, which was signed last summer by former Gov. David Paterson, requires motorists to slow down any time they encounter an emergency vehicle parked on the side of the road. If it's a highway, drivers will also be required to move over a lane, assuming traffic conditions permit this to be done safely. Failure to comply will be punishable by a fine and two points on your driver license.

The impetus for the law was the deaths of two New York State Troopers, Robert Ambrose and Glenn Searles, who were killed while investigating accident scenes on the highway. While police officers are the primary beneficiaries of the new law, fire and EMS workers also stand to benefit from the law. Roadways are extremely dangerous places to respond for emergencies, and this will hopefully reduce the too-high number of roadside fatalities among public safety workers (more than 160 police officers alone have been killed in the past decade).

Staying on public safety, The Dartmouth ran an article today on the Dartmouth College administration's new alcohol-harm reduction initiatives. The article reported that President Jim Yong-Kim drew a distinction between the personal safety and public safety spheres with respect to student drinking. "The Hanover Police are public safety officers. But this is really not a public safety issue ... I am very concerned at the current situation, that by misunderstanding fundamentally the alcohol problem at Dartmouth as a public safety issue, the arrests and the prosecutions are making personal safety in grave danger."

President Kim's distinction between public safety and personal safety is an interesting one, and I agree with him to an extent. He seems, however, to be equating public safety with situations that only involve individuals and property not associated with the College. This relegates to the realm of "personal safety" legal infractions that do not directly affect the aforementioned "public" entities, and this definition is better suited for the term "victimless crime" than "personal safety issue." Though safety is certainly an issue in many instances of underage drinking, each alcohol-related emergency starts with a crime (often multiple crimes, since underage drinking and providing alcohol to a minor tend to go hand in hand).

President Kim may be correct that "The arrests and the prosecutions are making personal safety in grave danger," although I doubt it. But even if this is so, criticizing the police department for enforcing the law is not going to make things better. Greater personal responsibility and accountability on the part of the student body, on the other hand, is the way to go. Or if that is too much to ask--which I reject as a conclusion--then pursuing legislative reform by way of lowering the drinking age or lessening the (already lenient) penalties for underage drinking might be satisfactory. But what police department could ever agree to stop enforcing the law?