Current through the 2024 Budget Session
Section 31-5-958 - Display of warning devices when vehicle disabled(a) Whenever any truck, bus, truck tractor, trailer, semitrailer or pole trailer eighty (80) inches or more in overall width or thirty (30) feet in overall length is stopped upon a roadway or adjacent shoulder, the driver shall immediately actuate vehicular hazard warning signal lights meeting the requirements of W.S. 31-5-923 when warning signal lights are required by W.S. 31-5-923. The lights need not be displayed by a vehicle parked lawfully in an urban district, or stopped lawfully to receive or discharge passengers, or stopped to avoid conflict with other traffic or to comply with the directions of a police officer or an official traffic-control device or while the devices specified in subsections (b) through (g) of this section are in place.(b) Whenever any vehicle of a type referred to in subsection (a) of this section is disabled, or stopped for more than ten (10) minutes, upon a roadway outside of an urban district at any time when lighted lamps are required, the driver of the vehicle shall display the following warning devices except as provided in subsection (c) of this section:(i) A lighted fusee, a lighted red electric lantern or a portable red emergency reflector shall be immediately placed at the traffic side of the vehicle in the direction of the nearest approaching traffic;(ii) As soon thereafter as possible but in any event within the burning period of the fusee (ten (10) minutes), the driver shall place three (3) liquid-burning flares (pot torches), three (3) lighted red electric lanterns or three (3) portable red emergency reflectors on the roadway in the following order: (A) One (1) approximately one hundred (100) feet from the disabled vehicle in the center of the lane occupied by the vehicle and toward traffic approaching in that lane;(B) One (1) approximately one hundred (100) feet in the opposite direction from the disabled vehicle and in the center of the traffic lane occupied by the vehicle;(C) One (1) at the traffic side of the disabled vehicle not less than ten (10) feet rearward or forward thereof in the direction of the nearest approaching traffic. If a lighted red electric lantern or a red portable emergency reflector has been placed at the traffic side of the vehicle in accordance with paragraph (b)(i) of this section, it may be used for this purpose.(c) Whenever any vehicle referred to in this section is disabled, or stopped for more than ten (10) minutes, within five hundred (500) feet of a curve, hillcrest or other obstruction to view, the warning device in that direction shall be so placed as to afford ample warning to other users of the highway, but in no case less than one hundred (100) feet nor more than five hundred (500) feet from the disabled vehicle.(d) Whenever any vehicle of a type referred to in this section is disabled, or stopped for more than ten (10) minutes, upon any roadway of a divided highway during the time that lighted lamps are required, the appropriate warning devices prescribed in subsections (b) and (e) of this section shall be placed as follows: (i) One (1) at a distance of approximately two hundred (200) feet from the vehicle in the center of the lane occupied by the stopped vehicle and in the direction of traffic approaching in that lane;(ii) One (1) at a distance of approximately one hundred (100) feet from the vehicle, in the center of the lane occupied by the vehicle and in the direction of traffic approaching in that lane;(iii) One (1) at the traffic side of the vehicle and approximately ten (10) feet from the vehicle in the direction of the nearest approaching traffic.(e) Whenever any motor vehicle used in the transportation of explosives or any cargo tank truck used for the transportation of any flammable liquid or compressed flammable gas is disabled, or is stopped for more than ten (10) minutes, at any time or place mentioned in subsection (b), (c) or (d) of this section, the driver of the vehicle shall immediately display red electric lanterns or portable red emergency reflectors in the same number and manner specified therein. Flares, fusees or signals produced by flame shall not be used as warning devices for disabled vehicles of the type mentioned in this subsection nor for vehicles using compressed gas as a fuel.(f) The flares, fusees, red electric lanterns and portable red emergency reflectors to be displayed as required in this section shall conform with the requirements of W.S. 31-5-957 applicable thereto.(g) The warning devices described in subsections (b), (c), (d) and (e) of this section need not be displayed where there is sufficient light to reveal persons and vehicles within a distance of one thousand (1,000) feet.(h) When any vehicle described in this section is stopped entirely off the roadway and on an adjacent shoulder at any time and place described, the warning devices shall be placed, as nearly as practicable, on the shoulder near the edge of the roadway.