The Life-Saving Law Few Drivers Understand Until It’s Too Late

• Only 64% of drivers slow down or move over near roadside incidents.
• Tow truck drivers face the highest risk from weak enforcement efforts.
• Most drivers change lanes but rarely slow down, missing half the law.

It sounds straightforward enough: slow down and move over. Yet for many drivers, this simple instruction might as well be written in another language. A new study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety (AAAFTS) shows just how little the average motorist grasps this life-or-death rule.

Every state has a law surrounding “Slow Down, Move Over,” as it’s known, yet only one in three drivers truly understands what it requires. And that gap in awareness is costing lives.

Inside the AAA Study

After 46 tow truck drivers were killed in 2024, AAAFTS decided to dig deeper. The foundation conducted focus groups with 135 drivers across 10 states and analyzed footage from 169 separate crash scenes using existing traffic cameras. The goal was to see how drivers behaved when faced with stopped vehicles on the roadside.

In total, data were gathered on 12,365 drivers across those 169 scenes. The findings were, to put it mildly, concerning.

More: Drivers In South Carolina Will Soon Face $500 Fines Just For Not Switching Lanes

Roughly two-thirds of the drivers surveyed said they knew about Slow Down Move Over (SDMO) laws, but couldn’t articulate what they were in the state where they lived.

They were unsure about which vehicles were protected, legally speaking, and what exactly the law required them to do as a driver. How real drivers reacted on the road was even more unsettling.

A majority, 64 percent, did indeed do something (we’ll come back to that) when coming upon a stopped vehicle. That still means that a whopping 36 percent did nothing.

So just over one in every three cars in the slow lane just kept on driving as if nothing was happening on the shoulder mere inches away.

The other 64 percent, though, weren’t exactly following the law. AAA says that they either slowed down or moved over. “Changing lanes was far more common than reducing speed, suggesting that many drivers are missing half the law’s intent,” it concluded.

In addition, drivers were less likely to do anything if the stopped vehicle wasn’t a police vehicle, highlighting the need for even more education on that front.

What Needs to Change?

“Every responder working on the roadside deserves to make it home safely,” said AAA Director of Traffic Safety Advocacy and Research Jake Nelson. “We need clear, consistent laws, visible enforcement, and education that resonates with drivers. When everyone understands what ‘slow down, move over’ really means, we can make our roads safer for those who protect us every day.”

It’s clear that some states are stepping up with stronger penalties and more public outreach, but the data make one thing obvious: understanding remains dangerously low.

Until education and enforcement catch up, too many roadside workers will continue to face unnecessary risk from drivers who simply don’t know (or don’t think) the law applies to them.

Photos AAA

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