Maine: Crash on 295: Police report that Trooper injured in ‘move over’ violation

Maine residents have paid witness to State Police troopers suffering brushes with death as motorists failed to move over per state law, risking crashing into the parked cruisers. Last Thursday, July 30, the latest incident involved a tractor trailer colliding with a parked State Police cruiser along Interstate 295 in Richmond. Trooper Greg Stevens had just checked on another tractor trailer that had been stopped along the road, state officials reported. Moments after Stevens returned to his cruiser and after that tractor trailer had merged back into traffic, the cruiser was struck from behind with Stevens in it, police said.

The truck driver, Gusan Yedic, 56, of Yorktown Heights, N.Y., was cited for failing to move over for an emergency vehicle. He was summonsed for the violation. The cruiser had its blue lights on, while parked in the breakdown lane, police said. Stevens, a 17-year State Police veteran, was taken to Maine Medical Center for broken ribs and neck and leg injuries. The cruiser, a 2015 Ford SUV, was demolished. The tractor trailer, owned by Yamamoto Carrier Inc., of Buffalo Grove, N.Y., was empty at the time of the collision but caught fire. The burned out tractor trailer was removed from the median last Thursday afternoon, reducing traffic to one lane and turning 295 into a parking lot all the way down to Bowdoin in the northbound direction.