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Senate expands "move over" law to protect utility workers and people at disabled vehicles
Summary
The Massachusetts Senate approved an expansion of the state’s "move over" law to add utility workers and disabled vehicles to the list of protected vehicles, with escalating fines and mandatory classroom time for repeat offenders.
The Massachusetts Senate on Oct. 16, 2025, approved an act to strengthen the Commonwealth’s "move over" law by adding utility workers and disabled vehicles to the list of protected roadside situations and creating escalated penalties for repeat violations.
Sen. Creighton, joined by the transportation committee chair and other colleagues, described the bill as a public-safety measure to reduce roadside deaths and serious injuries. The bill expands the existing law (first enacted in 2009) so that drivers encountering stationary emergency-response vehicles, highway maintenance vehicles, recovery vehicles, utility workers and disabled vehicles must slow to a reasonable and safe speed and, if possible, move over into a nonadjacent lane.
Supporters cited national and state data. The transcript records the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimate that “over 300 people die annually” nationwide after being struck while outside stopped vehicles; lawmakers said an average of 24 utility workers are struck and killed each year nationwide and that in Massachusetts since 2019, 23 people were struck and killed while standing outside disabled vehicles. Senators also cited recent high-profile cases, naming State Trooper Tamar Gucci and Sergeant Thomas Devlin and citing the December 2023 deaths of Waltham Police Officer Paul Tracy and utility worker Roderick Jackson.
The bill sets an escalating penalty scheme on the floor: $100 for a first offense, $250 for a second offense and $500 for subsequent offenses, and it adds mandatory classroom time for second and subsequent offenders. (Those penalty amounts were stated on the floor during debate.) The Senate considered and acted on several floor amendments: the chamber adopted amendments accounting for municipally owned utility vehicles and related technical fixes and rejected others, including one that would have required interior lights to be turned on during stops.
Sen. Feeney and others noted that utility and infrastructure workers perform dangerous work on roadways and urged passage to improve worker safety. The clerk recorded a roll-call vote of 39 in the affirmative and none in the negative; the bill was passed to be engrossed and will be sent on for final enactment procedures.
