(Jackson, Mn.)– An area sheriff is reminding everyone of the importance of slowing down when coming upon flashing lights on the roadway. Jackson County Sheriff Shawn Haken says an incident about a week ago that critically injured Logan Waldner, a deputy with the Nobles County Sheriff’s Office, is proof…
“A deputy was over there helping the State Patrol. They were actually working on an accident from earlier and the deputy was just parked on the side of the interstate, lights going, and his job basically is to slow traffic down to let people know hey, there’s something going on in front of you which was the State Patrol investigating this other crash, and sadly he was rear-ended by another vehicle at interstate speeds.”
Haken explains what to do whenever you come across flashing lights…
“Because there’s a lot of vehicles out there with flashing lights. Obviously we’re talking about squad cars, you know, but there’s fire trucks, there could be ambulances, it could be your public utilities like Federated REA, it could even be just a motorist with a flat tire. Obviously we all have hazard lights on our vehicles and we turn them on for the same reason that we do in squad cars and fire trucks just to let people know, hey, something’s going on, slow down just a tad.”
Haken says many states have laws on the books to that affect. In Minnesota, it’s known as the Ted Foss Law…
“And what the Ted Foss Law says is if you do see flashing lights up ahead and you’re on a, I’m going to call it a two-lane road, two lanes going the same direction. So for us that means I-90 and Highway 60. So if you see those flashing lights you are required to slow down and if that left lane is open you’re expected to slide into that left lane. That gives that person, like the deputy from Nobles or the Jackson Federated REA folks, it gives them all kinds of room to do what they got to do, so to speak. If you can’t slide over because there happens to be a vehicle in the left lane, that’s fine, you can’t control that, but you’re still expected to slow down. Just slowing down, you know that’s half the battle that we seem to be working on more and more each day, trying to get folks to slow down. Don’t worry, you’re going to get from that point A to point B in time.”
Haken says it’s become standard practice for Jackson county deputies to put their vehicle in neutral whenever they’re outside it along a road, with the steering wheel turned to guide it toward the ditch, should the vehicle be struck.
