Published on Monday, July 31, 2006
in the Miami Herald

Move your car after an accident? Yes, you can!

Myth: If you're involved in a minor accident, don't move your car. If you do, police can't investigate and your insurance company won't pay a legitimate claim.

Reality: As long as nobody needs medical help, Florida law requires drivers involved in noninjury crashes to move their vehicles immediately out of travel lanes to safe locations.

Police are well-trained to figure out who was at fault -- most accidents aren't that difficult to investigate -- and insurance companies will pay legitimate claims even if the car is moved.

Florida Highway Patrol dispatchers are trained to tell noninjury accident victims to move their vehicles to a nearby, safe location out of the traffic flow.

''We tell people, but that really doesn't mean much,'' said Duty Officer Patty Chong-Yen, a 13-year FHP veteran at the West Miami-Dade barracks. ``I'm guessing about a third of the people resist.''

Chong-Yen's colleague, Terri Evans, estimates one-half of all callers don't know the law. Many drivers insist that they'll be punished by investigators or their insurance carriers for moving the vehicle before blame can be assessed, Chong-Yen and Evans say, and the callers are equally unmoved by the threat that they could be legally charged with causing any subsequent accidents that occur behind the original one.

The dispatchers are realists. They know that sometimes accident vehicles can't be moved -- especially if the driver on the phone is trying to defend himself from tire-iron blunt trauma or prevent the other driver from fleeing the area.

But there are thousands of crashes on the interstates, expressways, major state roads and local streets in Miami-Dade and Broward counties where drivers contribute to the gridlock problem because they won't get out of the way.

Moving a damaged car off the roadway diminishes the likelihood of secondary incidents -- other accidents, breakdowns and overheated engines -- that add to congestion. It also improves safety conditions for emergency responders.

Several national studies have found that lane-blocking events affect traffic flow far out of proportion to the number of lanes blocked. Even minor incidents can significantly clog roads if they aren't removed quickly.

For every minute an emergency vehicle blocks a lane to respond to an accident, it creates four to five minutes of congestion, according to an oft-cited study by the Federal Highway Administration.

And it comes at a heavy price. The respected Texas Transportation Institute estimates that South Floridians lose $2.48 billion a year sitting in traffic and paying for excess fuel consumption, the sixth-worst rate in the nation.

This is another widespread South Florida problem with a simple solution: combat ignorance with information. And local leaders who are preparing an educational campaign won't have to, ahem, reinvent the wheel.

Houston's version is called ''Steer It, Clear It.'' MetroPlan Orlando -- Central Florida's tri-county transportation planning agency -- developed a campaign in 2003 that gets right to the point: ``Move It -- Yes You Can.''

Orlando-area billboard companies donated signs promoting the effort. Public-service ads ran in heavy rotation on radio stations and on local-access cable TV. Brochures were handed out with tax bills and other municipal notices and by police officers and Road Ranger-style tow-truck drivers.

''I think it was a smart move, just to get everyone on the same page,'' said former Orange County Commissioner Ted Edwards, who spearheaded the campaign. ``We had to let people know and understand the law, but we did it by showing them the economic benefits and the quality-of-life benefits.''