As authorities continue to look for the driver who hit and killed a tow truck driver over the weekend, other tow truck drivers are planning to honor him in a procession.
Drivers at Barnett's Towing will lead a tow truck procession on Monday during Danny Haro's funeral in Benson. Haro died June 4 while helping a stranded motorist on I-10 after a box truck hit and killed him and then took off.
Following that accident, local tow truck drivers are hoping to remind the public about Arizona's "Move Over" law. If you see someone on the side of the road, you have to move to the left. And if you can't safely do that, you have to slow down.
The law was updated in 2011 to include all vehicles, not just emergency responders. That includes stranded motorists and tow truck drivers. But tow truck drivers say they continue to notice car after car not moving over and not slowing down.
"I would say probably 40 percent of traffic moves over," said Ty Wildman, the Tucson Manager of Barnett's Towing. "We just had one the other day when we were up doing another call that a tow truck didn't move over and you know, that's bad."
Wildman says he lost one of his own drivers to a roadside accident in 2014.
"Last year I put 37 names on the wall of the fallen in Chattanooga, Tennessee," he said. "And those are only the ones that we know about that were reported to us."
According to the Arizona Department of Transportation, a tow truck driver is killed every six days in the United States in a roadside accident, compared to one law enforcement officer every month in a roadside accident.
"If there is room, please move over," said Wildman. "If not, at least slow down substantially. You don't realize how fast cars are going until you're standing on that white line and people go by you at 70 miles an hour."
Authorities are still looking for the driver that hit and killed Haro. The accident happened June 4 at 2:30 a.m. along I-10 about seven miles west of Benson.
Detectives are looking for a white box truck with a broken red light on the passenger side. The broken light might be either a front right turn signal or a red reflector from the passenger side.
If you have any information on the incident please call ADPS Criminal Investigations at 520-746-4500 or 602-223-2840.
A Gofundme page has also been set up for Haro's family.
