State Police: Trooper investigating Expressway crash injured when drunk drives into his cruiser
By adamg on Tue, 09/06/2016 - 2:42pm
A Quincy woman faces OUI charges for a crash that sent a state trooper to the hospital early this morning, State Police report.
State Police say the trooper was stopped to investigate minor crash on the southbound side of I-93, just past Mass. Ave., when Lily Reid, 21, drove into him around 1:30 a.m. He was taken to Tufts Medical Center, where he was treated and released this morning, State Police say.
In addition to OUI, she was also charged with failure to move over for a stopped emergency vehicle. She is scheduled for arraignment tomorrow in Boston Municipal Court.
Innocent, etc.
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Hard to miss
Whenever I encounter stopped police cars at night, they generally have every light going and are an unmissable beacon of moving lights. How loaded do you have to be to miss that and plow right into the stopped car?
Target fixation
Whatever you're looking at, that's where you're gonna go. If you're not compos, it's easy to see how you'd just stare at the pretty lights..."Oh boy I hope this cop doesn't pull me over..."
yep
Sober or Drunk, the lights are disorienting and will draw you towards them.. Its like the deer in headlight thing.. Of course being drunk it makes it worse.
And agreed on the posters talking about more OUI checkpoints. I'm def more worried about drunk drivers and texting drivers than ISIS.
Well....
This:
is a good question. The woman must've been super-loaded or she wouldn't have run through the closure and injure the policeman. It's disgusting.
It doesn't excuse the drunk
It doesn't excuse the drunk part, but newer police lights can be quite blinding and disorienting. I think future studies will show they do more harm than good and disorient even alert, sober drivers with good vision.
And they're often in the worst places - in the midst of construction workers and lane reconfigurations.
The most common cause of death on duty
Motor vehicle crashes account for over forty percent of line of duty deaths for cops. I couldn't find a breakdown of types, but these sorts of incidents are not uncommon. It would be interesting to see if lighting schemes have made a difference either way.
I'll post the links when I can get on my laptop.
One of my coworkers lost his dad like this. My dad was hit working road crew when a drunk blew through a lane closure. It is a dangerous situation for highway workers and cops. No wonder they shut down several lanes at once when working on the road.
UPDATE: Sources
http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-data/causes.html?referrer...
http://www.nleomf.org/assets/pdfs/nhtsa/2015-EOY-NHTSA-Report.pdf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/07/12/are-most-...
This one has the best "drill down":
http://www.nleomf.org/assets/pdfs/officer-safety/Primary_Research_Final_...
Yes
I wish the police Unions pushed for more sobriety checkpoints and tougher DUI laws instead of (or perhaps in addition to) wanting more weaponry.
For all the talk of terrorists and militant activists, it's the guy (or gal) who's driving three sheets to the wind who's the greatest actual risk.
"Motor vehicle crashes
"Motor vehicle crashes account for over forty percent of line of duty deaths for cops"
Yet we're giving cops more guns. Couldn't agree more - stop pushing for weapons that cops shouldn't have, leave that to the specialists, and enforce the existing laws.
I suspect that the overly
I suspect that the overly bright lights actually make it more likely drivers will slam into cruisers, not less. I'd like to see a well designed study on the issue--I couldn't find one by Googling.
Interesting
I would have assumed it was the booze that made them smash into the cruiser.
Why aren't they swerving into the breakdown lane
when there is no trooper there
Because they're drunk?
Target fixation us real but it mostly effects drunks. So instead of excuses blame the drunk driver.
Maybe they are
But they only hit the guardrail or swerve back onto the road.
You're only really going to hear about it when they hit a cop or another car.
Simple solution
Require that all new cars have a breathalyzer interlock.
The technology is available.