Be prepared to give law enforcement officials a wide berth while driving.

A new state law that Gov. David Paterson signed last week and will go into effect Jan. 1, 2011 will require motorists to not only give police room when they are headed to a call, but when they’ve already arrived at one. The “Ambrose-Searles Move Over Act” requires drivers to move over or slow down when approaching a parked authorized emergency vehicle with flashing emergency lights.

“We have always had laws that you had to pull over when they were going to an event, but now when you see a police officer with somebody pulled over, you have to slow down and change lanes,” said State Sen. William Stachowski, who sponsored the bill. “Yo u ’ve got to recognize that they’re there and you’ve got to be safe. You have to be at a slow speed or in a completely different lane.”

The law is named after a pair of law enforcement officers who died on New York State roadways while attending to traffic calls.

New York State Trooper Robert Ambrose was killed in 2002 when his patrol car was struck from behind by another vehicle on the shoulder of I-87 in Yonkers.

Onondaga County Sheriff Deputy Glenn M. Searles was killed in 2003 when a driver of a minivan struck Searles as he was tending to a stranded motorist on I-481 in the Syracuse suburb of DeWitt.

“I can speak for my law enforcement brethren when I say there are too many near misses and, unfortunately, times when people don’t miss, when they hit our cars and injure our people,” said New York State Police Capt. Michael Nigrelli. These events are totally preventable. This law will go a long way to helping us keep the law enforcement people out there as safe as possible.”

Nigrelli said the punishment for failing to abide by the law would be a two-point violation on the offender’s drivers license and that the fine schedule would be determined by the court.

Although laws are in place to require motorists to pull over when an emergency vehicle with flashing lights would approach, Nigrelli said this law puts to rest a need to protect those law enforcement officers who are outside their vehicles.

He relayed a story of how he had to dive into the cab of a tractor trailer during a traffic stop because an oncoming motorist didn’t slow down and got to close.

“They used to play a game and try to blow our hats off,” Nigrelli said. “That was how close can you get to blow a trooper’s hat off. Well guess what. My life is a not a game. It’s not a joke, and I take this very seriously.”

“It’s a matter of public safety,” added Stachowski. “The men and women who are police officers have enough risk in their lives without having to worry about somebody that maybe is not paying attention and driving too close and causing a fatality.”