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Letter to the editor

Outrageous loss

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published December 26, 2007

Two police cruisers were damaged by drivers who did not move over or slow down despite emergency vehicles and flashing lights at an accident scene, authorities say.
	[Rita Farlow | Times]

Just before midnight Dec. 15, a northbound driver on U.S. 19 bangs into a concrete barrier wall near Ulmerton Road. Largo police Officer Darren Cockeram arrives to direct traffic while the Florida Highway Patrol investigates the accident. About an hour later, moments after Cockeram gets into his police cruiser to leave, a northbound Honda crashes into his vehicle, spinning it around.

While paramedics tend to Cockeram, Largo canine officer Jeff Rogers waves traffic away from the accident scene. Rogers' canine partner, Draco, is in the backseat of his cruiser, which is parked with its lights flashing. Yet Rogers must leap out of the way when an SUV traveling an estimated 60 mph barrels into the accident scene - where, mind you, there are multiple emergency vehicles and flashing lights - and slams into Rogers' cruiser, according to reports.

Both police vehicles are a total loss - $80,000 of taxpayer money down the drain. All those involved, including the police dog, luckily survive this mayhem. The driver who hit the first police cruiser is charged with driving under the influence. The second cruiser crash is still being investigated.

Responsible drivers, seeing flashing lights ahead, would slow down and move to the far side of the road. Indeed, Florida's new "Move Over Law" requires that all motorists move over when they see an emergency vehicle.

But on our roads are too many irresponsible drivers, who speed and weave in traffic without regard to anyone's safety, who get behind the wheel while staggering under the influence of alcohol or drugs, who don't look ahead or who allow themselves to be distracted.

These drivers either don't understand or refuse to accept that they hold the power of life or death when their hands are on a steering wheel.

If uniformed police officers working alongside marked cruisers with their lights flashing can be the victims of crashes not once, but twice within minutes, the risks to all motorists are even greater than we imagined.

[Last modified December 25, 2007, 21:25:36]