Law adding refuse vehicles to Move Over Law takes effect Nov. 1st

Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo is reminding drivers to stay alert for sanitation workers emptying bins on the side of the road as a new law takes effect Tuesday. An expansion to New York State’s Move Over Law requires vehicles to move over or slow down when approaching sanitation trucks on a public highway.

“This law extends the same courtesy to sanitation trucks that is offered to emergency vehicles,” said Lupardo. “This type of work can be very dangerous and this law will save lives as drivers pay closer attention to these trucks and their workers.”

Lupardo was the prime co-sponsor of the Assembly bill that expanded the Move Over Law; Assemblymen Cliff Crouch and Chris Friend also co-sponsored the Assembly legislation, along with Senator Fred Akshar who co-sponsored the bill in the Senate. The group of legislators had coordinated efforts to see the bill through.

In November 2015, Taylor Garbage employee Sean Tilghman was struck and killed while emptying a trash can on the side of the road. Shortly after his death, representatives from Taylor Garbage Services and Bert Adams Disposal met with Lupardo and other local officials to encourage their support for the bill that had previously passed the Senate, but had not advanced out of the Assembly’s Transportation Committee.

Following the meeting with Taylor Garbage and Bert Adams Disposal, Lupardo, a Transportation Committee member, worked with the bill’s prime sponsor Assemblyman Michael DenDekker to move the bill out of committee and ultimately to the floor for a vote in the Assembly where it passed unanimously.

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