What should I have done?

SidecarFlip wrote:
Sounds to me like you were following the tractor trailer too closely (tailgating). You should allow at least one vehicle space (your length) for every 10 miles per hour of speed. If you had abided by that rule, you would have saw the trooper in plenty of time to reduce your speed accordingly (move over or slow down) means slowing to 45 mph. which is the legal MINIMUM speed on any Inter-Intra state highway or Federally funded 2 lane road.

Accept the ticket and pay the citation and consider yourself lucky he didn't arrest you. He could have. You put his life in danger by your inactions.

I always slow down or move over for stopped emergency vehicles but that means not following so closely, the vehicle in front of you that you cannot.

Following too closely (assured clear distance) is one of the biggest accident contributors.

I know, the patent answer is, if I allow sufficient distance between the vehicle in front of me and me, someone will move into that space. Easy answer to that. Assume that distance from the vehicle that got in front of you instead of the vehicle you were initially following.

Remember, move over or slow down and slow down means slowing to the Federally mandated minimum speed of 45 mph.

Your advice of vehicle spacing may be "by the book" (although I am not sure of that), but it is completely impractical anytime there is a fair amount of traffic. You leave that much space in front of you around here (or really anywhere I travel in the West), and people will constantly be pulling in front of you and causing you to slow down further. Just not realistic. But thanks for the pompous answer nonetheless.

To the OP, the only thing I think you may have been able to do is slow down more. As stated a number of times, the law is to move over or slow down. I don't think there is a defined "slow down" speed, which makes it even more difficult.

I'd agree with the "trooper having a bad day" comments. If it was local, I would fight it.