Failure To Yield to Emergency Vehicle

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Alaska

Hello, I am very frustrated by a ticket that I just received and am hoping for some validation that I should fight this in court.

I was pulling a camper with my Chevy Tahoe, going the speed limit, when I suddenly noticed an emergency vehicle passing me from behind with it's lights on. I immediately checked for additional emergency vehicles and saw two more coming up behind me. I pulled to the right and stopped until they passed. About 20 miles up the road I came to the accident that they were going to, it looked like there was an injury.

The following day I received a call from an officer stating that he was going to give me a ticket for failure to yield, a $500.00 fine and six points on my license. He said they were behind me for almost a mile before I noticed him. As soon as I realized there were emergency vehicles behind me I pulled to the right and stopped. I obeyed all traffic laws, as soon as I knew there was an issue. I never heard a siren.

YOu should hire a traffic ticket defense lawyer.

This is a very serious ticket that you don't want

Don't talk to the cop.

Don't knot your own noose.

Thanks,

I already talked to him a little when he called me. I never told him that I couldn't see him well in my mirrors because of the camper, but I did tell him that I was focusing on what was in front of me because it was the first time I had pulled a camper and I was being extra careful. Is there a law dictating how often you are supposed to look in your review mirror for emergency vehicles?

Emergency vehicles sound a siren to let motorists know they're coming, and when they're on their way to a scene where there could be a life threatening injury, they don't wait until the last minute to turn the siren on. There's little chance you didn't hear the siren, and I would never have said to a police officer that I was focused on what was in front of me. That confirmed that you weren't paying attention to traffic in back of you or to the side.

Get a lawyer. Your excuses don't fly.

If you could not see behind your camper while towing, the mirrors on your tow vehicle are inadequate. Go to your local RV dealer, or to JC Whitney online and order over-sized mirrors which attach to the mirrors on your Tahoe so that you are able to safely tow the camper.

Good advice, but obviously too late to help the OP. He/she is obviously annoyed at being ticketed. The ticket was deserved.

Thanks for the feedback, I'm not looking for someone to hold my hand here, but I truly don't believe the ticket was deserved.

I have been researching to see if I can find any grounds to support my case. Here is what I have learned so far, in a nutshell:

REQUIRED EQUIPMENT:
• Mirror. Left side and inside or right mirror required. Vehicles with obstructed driver’s view through rear window and buses are required to have mirrors on left and right side. Mirrors must be adjusted to afford driver a view to the rear of the vehicle.

(While it was more difficult to see around the camper than it would have been if I didn't have it attached, I could see the backside of the camper and the road behind it. I did have a blind spot from the camper if a vehicle was close. I haven't been able to find any regulations that require extensions for the mirrors, although I readily admit that they would be a good idea.)

I found the definition of failure to yield to an emergency vehicle in Alaska on the day that this happened, but for some reason I can't find it online today. Basically it comes down to the fact that I would have to have "willfully or negligently" have held up the emergency vehicle.

I obviously didn't do this willfully or I wouldn't have pulled over to let the other emergency vehicles pass as soon as I realized what was happening.

As for negligently... (law) The breach of a duty of care: the failure to exercise a standard of care that a reasonable person would have in a similar situation.

While pulling a camper calls for extra diligence in your driving, there is no law against it. I have no reason to believe that the officer isn't being truthful about having his siren on, but I have a witness that was in the vehicle with me that can verify that we never heard a thing. My music wasn't up loud, I wasn't on my phone, and I was paying attention to the road. The officer stated that he followed me for a mile. It would have taken approximately a minute to travel a mile. Would a reasonable person been checking their rearview mirrors sometime within that minute? I don't believe that this situation qualifies as negligent. And for the person who doesn't believe me when I said I didn't hear the siren... I pulled over the second I saw the flashing lights. Why would I obey the law when I saw the lights but not when I heard the siren? That just doesn't make sense. It is possible, although I have no way to test this, that the camper created a sound barrier. That is just a guess though.

The negligence was not operating the vehicle with the attention and equipment required to see the emergency vehicle. However, the law doesn't require "negligence" only your failure to yield for WHATEVER reason.

Your "witness" will not be credible in court.

Sigh. Does anyone have anything more helpful than "You were wrong, suck it up?" I am pissed about this situation. I was being extremely careful. This could have happened to anyone, and there is no saying that if the extenders were on the mirrors I would have seen the emergency vehicles since I couldn't here the sirens.

I read that a lot of people are having trouble hearing sirens these days because they are making cars so soundproof. Add the barrier of the camper... maybe they should make the sirens louder. I could be pointing out a very important saftey issue here.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, even if I don't like what you have to say.

Ok, I'm sorry something doesn't add up. First off, I question why the cops didn't simply go around you on the left. How wide and how many lanes on the road?

Secondly, I've driven a box truck with a trailer and gotten pulled over at night, I knew instantly when the cop put his lights on even though I didn't know a cop was behind until that point.

Hot Topic said:

Good advice, but obviously too late to help the OP. He/she is obviously annoyed at being ticketed. The ticket was deserved.

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I know, but as a camper, I hate when I see people towing without proper equipment. I know he says his mirrors were adequate, but obviously they weren't.

(Anyone else a camping fan? I've got a little popup, and have taken it all around the US.)

davew128 said:

Ok, I'm sorry something doesn't add up. First off, I question why the cops didn't simply go around you on the left. How wide and how many lanes on the road?

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Perhaps it was not safe to do so. Still it matters NOT why they didn't. They shouldn't have to. You are required to move right to get out of their way.

I used to drive an ambulance. I can tell you it's problematic even on roads with multiple travel lanes.

Indiana Filer said:

I know, but as a camper, I hate when I see people towing without proper equipment. I know he says his mirrors were adequate, but obviously they weren't.

(Anyone else a camping fan? I've got a little popup, and have taken it all around the US.)

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Love camping - have a 25' TT...(with proper mirrors for my truck ) Unfortunately, I'm not in the position to be able to take off for anything more than a few weekend trips & about a week in the summer.

Zigner said:

Love camping - have a 25' TT...(with proper mirrors for my truck ) Unfortunately, I'm not in the position to be able to take off for anything more than a few weekend trips & about a week in the summer.

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Oh my lord, camping? My idea of roughing it is staying in a hotel where they don't heat the towels.

Love to camp, we go all the time.

Recently bought a smaller camper that I would be able to tow with my Tahoe and sold the larger 5th wheel that could only be pulled with my Husbands truck.

We have mirror extensions on his truck, he uses them for work and also for when we were pulling our larger camper. This was the 1st time I had taken the camper by myself for a girls weekend. I was being uber careful because my husband had me so freaked out that I was going to do something to hurt the camper. We should have put the extentions on my vehicle for the trip, but I really don't know if that would have made a difference or not. I swear on all that is holy that we never heard a peep of a siren. I know that doesn't make any sense, but it is true.

We were on a fairly narrow two lane highway, traffic in each direction. The road is curvy enough that he must have not felt comfortable passing right away. Eventually he did begin to pass me on the left. That is when I noticed him and the other two emergency vehicles behind me and pulled over.