LANSING — When a gasoline tanker spilled at the north end of Ottawa County, sheriff’s deputies responded to the accident but relied on emergency management volunteers to block roads and redirect traffic.

“Things were shut down for a good eight, nine hours,” said sheriff’s Lt. Steve Kempker.

In the sea of flashing lights at the scene of the spill, volunteers who came in their own vehicles were left without a way to indicate their presence.

But if a pending Senate bill passes, emergency management volunteers will be able to use flashing, rotating or oscillating red lights.

After the tanker incident in Crockey Township, Ottawa County officials looked for a way to give the volunteers the right to use such lights.

“What we had found was, under the motor vehicle code, people in emergency management services had nothing that would cover them to have emergency lights on their vehicle,” Kempker said.

Next came meetings between the officials and Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland.

Kuipers first proposed the emergency light bill last year, only to have it die in the Senate Transportation Committee.

“We had a lot of things going on last year, so we weren’t pushing it really hard,” said Angie Doezema, Kuipers’ legislative aide.

However, the proposal mattered enough to the senator’s constituents for him to reintroduce it this year, Doezema said. It now sits, once again, in the Transportation Committee.

Kempker said, “These are volunteers, and I think for them, for their protection, for their safety, citizens need to be aware that these people are out there.”

The bill would prohibit volunteers from using their lights anywhere but the scene of an accident, Kempker said, because they are not “first responders” like law enforcement, medical or fire services.

“The purpose of the bill was not to respond to the scene, because normally by the time we request the volunteers, a good share of the emergency is over,” he said.

Jim VanBendegom of Grand Rapids, president of the Michigan Emergency Management Association, raised a concern about the color of the lights.

“I think most emergency managers associate red oscillating lights with emergency response — not so much the defensive mode, it’s the offensive mode of getting resources somewhere quickly,” he said.

VanBendegom said orange or yellow lights to show caution would make more sense to motorists.