'COMPLACENT' DRIVERS FORGET ROAD RULES

Fernandina Beach Police Officer Marty Scott is known around town for his efforts to educate people about traffic safety; he's been awarded for arresting people for DUI, he's handed out his fair share of citations for speeding and running stoplights as well."If you run a stoplight, you're pretty much getting a ticket with me, that's pretty major," he said.

But while driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, speeding and driving through red lights are well-known driving risks, Scott knows first-hand that a potentially tragic accident can be caused just by taking your eyes off the road for a moment, or failing to notice a sign on the side of the road.

When he was a teenage passenger in a friend's brand new Volkswagen Jetta, the driver stopped watching the road only for a moment, long enough to change the radio station. When he looked up, he realized he had begun to veer off the road, overcorrected the vehicle and drove "across the road, into a ditch, flipping end over end five times."

Scott says often that's how accidents happen. "One minute, you're just changing the radio station, the next your car is flipping end over end," he said. And it's not only people driving cars and trucks who often need a refresher course in the rules of the road; anyone treading on the asphalt, whether on foot, on a bicycle or in a motorized vehicle, needs to be aware of how to keep themselves, and others around them, safe.

Scott and Nassau County Undersheriff Carl Woodle agree that watching people take to the roads can sometimes make a law enforcement officer cringe.

Something that concerns Woodle is motorcycle traffic; much smaller than cars and trucks, but using the same roads, motorcycles are more difficult for drivers to see than other cars and trucks. He worries that not all motorcyclists are aware of that danger.

"You're not as visible as an automobile would be, and you have to take that into consideration," he said, adding that the same holds true for pedestrians and people on bicycles. Even though the law may say you have the right-of-way, Woodle said you should still proceed with caution through an intersection or a crosswalk because other drivers may not be able to see you to yield the right-of-way.

"You've got to try to look at that vehicle, at that driver, and get an idea ... of whether they see you instead of just saying 'I've got the right-of-way so I'll go ahead,'" Woodle said. "You may have the right-of-way, but that's not going to make you feel any better when you get hit by a car."

Wearing light-colored clothes, especially at night, is also recommended, and pedestrians should walk on the left side of the road, facing oncoming traffic, and as far away from the road as possible. People riding bikes should be riding on the right side of the road, with the flow of traffic, and they are bound to all of the same traffic laws that govern automobiles, including DUI laws.

"I recently arrested a guy for DUI on a bicycle, he was falling off," Scott said. Bicyclists are also required to obey traffic signs and signals, and to indicate with hand signals when they are going to make a turn. While the smaller guys on the road - bicyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians - need to be aware that they're sharing the road with bigger cars and trucks, that goes both ways, and impatient car and truck drivers need to remember that the bicyclist in front of them on the road has the same right to be there as they do, Scott said.

Drivers passing someone on a bicycle must give the cyclist at least three feet of space between their vehicle and the bike. And drivers should also keep an eye out for pedestrians. While the law requires pedestrians to use sidewalks when they are available and to cross the street at a nearby available crosswalk if one is available, motorists still may be cited if they hit a pedestrian who didn't use the crosswalk. Drivers are required by law to yield to pedestrians, if at all possible, whether they're properly abiding by the traffic laws or not.

"You can't just mow somebody down because they stepped out and didn't have the right-of-way, or weren't using a sidewalk," Scott said. "That falls under aggravated assault with a motor vehicle." Something else Scott said he frequently sees is students waiting in their parents' vehicle to be dropped off at school taking off their safety belts as they wait for the car to make its way to the drop-off point.

The drop-off lines at area schools may take a while to get through, but Scott said parents are still required to make sure their children are buckled up until they unbuckle and exit the vehicle. "The child is in the back seat, unbuckled, the parents aren't paying attention because they're looking at the car in front of them, waiting to advance (in line), and when I see this I yell at them," he said. "What if the car behind you didn't realize you were still stopped and hit you, and that child goes flying up to the front seat and goes into the windshield, what then?"

Another traffic law Scott said he frequently sees broken is the "move over" law that requires drivers to pull into the left lane of traffic - if they are driving on a road with four lanes or more - if they see emergency vehicles, or a tow truck, on the side of the road with the emergency lights flashing. If driving on a two-lane road, drivers must slow to 20 mph below the posted speed limit. The law, passed in 2003 in response to deaths and injuries of emergency personnel working on the side of the road, was publicized but Scott said people often tell him they weren't aware of the law.

But what it all boils down to, Scott and Woodle say, is paying attention. "They get complacent to driving," Scott said. "... You're not paying attention, you're thinking about so many things, you're getting a phone call ... I understand, but the bad thing about it is that it's an accident waiting to happen."