ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A St. Petersburg police officer said he got a scary close call during a routine traffic stop back on Jan. 6.
"I exited the vehicle, made contact with the driver explained to him the reason for the stop, got his information, went back to my car to run it," Kenneth Seay said.
Seay said he checked for oncoming traffic, got out of his car again and came face to face with a car heading right at him.
"I had enough time to understand that was probably gonna happen, but I didn't have enough time to have an emotional response to it," Seay said.
Seay said the car was coming at him very fast.
"I could see that it was lined up with my body, so I kind of expected to have that be the last that I'll probably be here," he said. "I thought I was going to die."
The car bent Seay's cruiser door all the way back, knocked a magazine off his belt and hit his arm in the process.
"I felt the impact and it went numb. So, I figured everything was probably broken."
Despite this, Seay finished his traffic stop. He said it's calls like this that officers, first responders and roadside assistance crews know so well.
"I almost just ended up [being] another YouTube video," he said.
In 2023, the St. Petersburg Police Department issued more than 200 citations related to the move-over law – a number Seay believes is way too high.
"It's almost one a day, it's a pretty staggering number," Seay said.
It's something he's always feared, but says he's ready to leave the experience in the rearview mirror.
Seay said not taking this law seriously is putting defenseless drivers on the side of the road at a dangerous risk.
"I'm looking forward to kind of getting back into the swing of things and making people aware that they need to pay attention when on the road," he said. "They need to move over or slow down. Things could be a lot worse than they were with me."
Police arrested 24-year-old McKenzie Deaton and charged her with serious bodily injury in a hit and run, tampering with evidence and she was cited for failing to move over. She's one of eight people to receive that citation in 2024.
The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office issued more than 90 but gave out more than 350 warnings last year.
"You have to slow down to at least 20 miles below the posted speed limit," Seay said. "If the posted speed limit happens to be 20 miles an hour, you slow down to five miles an hour. But that's essentially what the law stipulates and it's in place for this very reason. So things like this don't happen."
The move-over law requires drivers to move over for emergency vehicles. It was enhanced in 2024 to include disabled vehicles.