Collision 2.0

Posted on December 11, 2015 by Badge415

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On Wednesday night I went to a crash on a residential street. While I was there, I remembered taking a spectacular collision a few years ago on the same street when a car struck a fence and drove into someone’s garage.

It was foggy last night and I asked the witness, “Didn’t a car hit a house over there?”

“Yes,” the witness replied.

I described the damage and how amazing the collision was. The witness told me the house belonged to her neighbor and she remembered that night also. We talked about it briefly and then moved on. I finished the call and left.

On Thursday night, I was sent to an injury collision in another part of the city involving two cars. After talking to the drivers, I contacted the passengers and wrote their information down. One of the passengers told me his address and it rang a bell. His address was very close to where I was last night. It was so close; he was probably my witness’s next door neighbor or two houses away.

Did he live in the house that I was talking about last night? What were the odds he was a past Badge415 customer?

After the tow trucks left, I drove away and pulled over to look up the address on a map. It turned out he lived in the same house that was hit by the car.

Did I jinx the guy by talking about his house last night?

I’ve met people from prior collisions before, but this took weird to an entirely new level. This poor guy now has the honor of being the only person in my career that was involved as a homeowner and as a passenger in my collision reports.

Maybe I should start carrying around stickers that say “I’ve met Badge415 twice.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

There’s no crying in traffic

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Badge415

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“There’s no crying in baseball.”

That was a famous line said by Tom Hanks in the movie “A League of Their Own.” Just thinking of that part in the movie makes me laugh.

The other night I drove up on a crash in which a car had struck a really big tree on the wrong side of the road. It was the type of tree that took the impact and still said, “Is that all you got?”

The driver was sitting on the curb and crying as he spoke to officers. He was very respectful and honest. He had been drinking and accepted responsibility for his mistake. I remembered thinking, “Why can’t everyone be like this guy?”

I took his statement and then went to look at the crashed car. He was still sobbing as I walked away. I spoke to some witnesses and then walked back to my car as the tow truck arrived. The tow driver attached his cable to the crashed car and dragged it up the flatbed.

As the car was pulled away from the tree, a loud sound could be heard as metal dragged across the pavement like nails on a chalkboard. The driver heard this and fell back on his elbow and laid in wet grass. The noise of his car being dragged seemed to be make him cry louder. It was as if we he was watching his first love leaving forever as she boarded a plane.

I had a feeling he learned his lesson tonight, but it left me wanting to say one thing…..

“There’s no crying in traffic.”

The curb with countless stories

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Badge415

The curb that keeps taking it like a champ

If you work as a traffic cop long enough you’ll return to certain locations over and over for collisions. It’s just the way it is. Usually these spots are heavily traveled intersections where the volume of traffic means it’s only a matter of time before another collision occurs.

This is true most of the time, but there’s one L shaped intersection where I work that has much less traffic, but has seen plenty of single vehicle crashes. If only the curb could talk.

This was what I thought about while standing there the other night at another single vehicle traffic collision. The only thing different that night was the name of the driver and what part of the curb he hit first before colliding into a tree, a building, a pole or a sign.

Sometimes the drivers say they were going too fast. Other times they say a phantom car cut them off. Either way, they crashed into the same curb.

I looked at the curb and saw all of its battle scars from vehicles that were traveling way too fast over the years. Each chipped portion of curb told a story of a vehicle that tried to go up against it, but lost like the others before it. All suffered the same fate and were towed away after their wheels were reduced to twisted metal and flat tires.

This particular curb has withstood the test of time and everything that man has tried to do to it with a car. Maybe one day people will figure it out and slow down. Unfortunately, it won’t be long before I go back and have another story to tell about this spot.

By the way, I don’t think I’ve ever had a woman crash at this location. Good job ladies. Too bad the guys can’t figure this out.

“Your mom still loves you”

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Badge415

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“Unit involved 902T.”

I was loading my patrol car up when I heard an officer broadcast over the radio that he was involved in a non-injury traffic collision. He gave his location and asked for a sergeant and a traffic unit to respond.

“729 en route,” I said as I drove out of the police department parking lot.

I arrived a short time later and saw a patrol car in a parking space next to a black car. John, the officer I heard on the radio, got out of the passenger seat and shook his head at me.

“Where’s the other car?” I asked.

John told me his trainee had side swiped a parked car while backing up. That’s when the trainee got out of the driver seat and walked up to us with his head held low. He looked like a guy who lived in a one-bedroom apartment that just found out his wife was pregnant with octuplets.

I wanted to laugh when I saw the look on his face. Not because I wanted to make fun of him. It was because I had that same look over 20 years ago when I crashed two weeks after getting out of training.

The damage on this call was nothing compared to my first traffic collision where both cars were towed away and the other driver was transported to the hospital in an ambulance. Now that was a bad day in 1995.

There’s also another reason why I remembered the day so well. It was because of the traffic officer laughing at me as he tried to make me feel better when he said, “It’s OK. Everyone crashes.”

Nothing was going to make me feel better that day because I was at fault, Of course, that didn’t stop him from joking around a lot. Looking back, that was his way of telling me this wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

After everything was cleaned up I got into my sergeant’s car so he could give me a ride back to the station. As we drove down the street he said, “I’ll buy you a soda.”

He pulled into the Burger King drive thru and said, “What do you want?”

“I’ll take a root beer,” I said with a dejected look.

“Don’t worry, everyone crashes.”

“Have you ever crashed?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said with a smile.

I got back to the station and walked in with my tail between my legs. At the end of shift I got a good dose of humor thrown my way from my co-workers.

I remembered all of this as I stood in front of the trainee, who recently graduated from the academy. Of course, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to make a joke as I said, “Don’t worry. Your mom still loves you.”

I laughed as an uneasy smile came across his face. I took his statement and told him the same thing I heard all those years ago when I was new to the world of police work. “Don’t worry. Everyone crashes.”

“Yes, sir,” was all he could say.

When I was done I handed him a collision card with the report number on it as I said, “Here’s a card.”

It was the same card I give out to regular people at collisions. “Keep this so you can look back and laugh one day.”

He smiled and took the card. Hopefully in a few years he’ll think the card was as funny as I did.

“The car was going fast”

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Badge415

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“The car was going fast.”

“Did you see it before the collision?”

“No.”

This exchange happens all the time at traffic collisions. In most cases, the same person did one of two things. They turned left in front of a car or pulled out from a driveway in front of a car. Either way they crashed into another driver, who was minding their own business while traveling down a road.

When this happens, the driver who is at fault tries to blame the other car because it was “going too fast.” My next question always is, “How do you know the car was going fast if you didn’t see it?”

This question usually triggers a twitch in the driver’s face that causes them to squint and give me that deep in thought look. It’s almost like I have a hidden switch that I flicked with my finger to get them to do that because it happens every I ask that question. Actually, there’s no switch. It just their confused look.

One confused driver once replied, “It felt fast.”

“It felt fast?”

“Yeah, it felt fast.”

I think the better way to describe the crash was that it felt hard, but who am I to point that out?

“The car was going fast” statement is alive and well in the traffic collision world. It is said a few times a week without fail. In fact, it came up again on Wednesday night in a four-car crash involving a driver with a suspended license.

I guess when there are five points of impact, four cars and a vehicle in someone’s front yard, a person might want to deflect blame onto someone else by saying, “He was going fast.”

I have an idea. How about following the f#$%ing rules and not drive? It would be easier for everyone out there on the roads.

Where’s his foot?

Posted on November 18, 2015 by Badge415

_DSC4559-2 The other night I went to an injury traffic collision involving a motorcycle and a car. The first officer on scene got on the radio and said it was a possible fatality. He also needed more traffic control to shut down the street. I was on a car stop at the time and gave the driver a break because I had to go.

As I drove away with my lights and siren on, I thought how this guy got a huge break on an expensive ticket because the other guy crashed. Kind of weird how one person’s misfortune was another person’s luck.

When I got to the scene, I saw the rider down in the street with fire personnel around him. There was a large group of people standing on the sidewalk watching.

His femur was sticking out of the skin above the knee in wound that looked right out of a war movie. There was also a large piece of flesh in the middle of the intersection that looked like a slice of cheese pizza.

After looking at the injury, I walked around to where his head was. That’s when I did a double take at the victim’s leg. It didn’t look right. From my angle the end of his leg looked like a pointy stub. The first thing that came to mind was, “Where’s his foot?”

I then looked around the area for the missing foot. I didn’t want anyone to trip over it or kick it around. As I did that, I thought how bizarre it was to be looking around for something like that.

I walked around the victim again and guess what I saw? His foot!

Thank goodness it was still attached, but it didn’t look the way it was supposed to. His shoe was off to the side and his foot was pointed down in an unnatural angle. It’s kind of funny now. I just hadn’t seen it right the first time.

One this is for sure, it’s not every day you get to say, “Where’s his foot?” I’m glad the victim survived with both feet still attached.

“You look familiar”

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Badge415

_DSC7442 The other night I was on a three-car collision when I looked at one of the drivers and said, “You look familiar.”

He turned to me with DUI looking eyes and didn’t say anything.

“Have you crashed before?” I asked.

He nodded his head as he said, “Yes.”

“Do you remember me?”

He shook his head no.

There was a tremor in the force because my Jedi senses told me I had run into this guy before. Well, he actually ran into someone else to be more accurate. I spent the rest of the call trying to figure out how I knew him.

A little while later, the arresting officer told me our driver was in a 2014 DUI collision that I was on. I knew it. Later on I did some research and read the old report. Bingo. I knew exactly who that was.

Back in May of 2014, I was stopped for a red light when my partner and I heard a crash. I looked across the intersection and saw two cars that were involved in a rear end collision. I drove across the street and pulled in behind the cars. The striking vehicle had front end damage and smoke was coming out from under the hood.

That’s when the door popped open and the driver fell out of the car. It was as if all of his weight was against the door and he rolled out onto the street. Once on the street, he flopped around like a sea lion at Sea World begging for a treat after doing a trick. The only thing missing was a crowd, a bucket of fish and a large pool of water.

After a few moments of animal entertainment he rolled over and started doing a low crawl like a sniper was shooting at him from a clock tower. It surely would’ve won the grand prize on America’s Funniest Home Videos. In the end, he was arrested for DUI and went to jail.

It was funny to watch because it’s not every day you get to see a grown man fall out of his car because he’s so drunk. It’s also not every day you get to run into him again at another collision.

Here’s the sad thing. This is the second time this year where I’ve contacted a previous DUI customer of mine at a crash where they were DUI again.

When are these people ever going to learn?

“I have an ID card.”

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Badge415

The other night I went to a call that was a little different. When I got there I saw two crashed cars at a three-way intersection in an industrial area. It was actually an unusual spot for a collision because of its out of the way location.

There was a witness driving westbound and saw a vehicle approaching from the opposite direction with no lights on. The witness was going to flash his high beams at the car to get its attention, but decided against it in case the car was full of gang members. The witness kept going and passed the car with no lights on. He then looked in his mirror and watched the crash happen as a car pulled out from a side street.

I next spoke to the driver and asked, “Were your lights on?”

“They were dim.”

That was a new excuse I had never heard before. He probably meant they were so dim you couldn’t see them on.

After that I went to speak to the woman, who made the left turn from the stop sign. She also said the other vehicle did not have its lights on. At the end of the interview, the translator asked if she had a license.

The woman replied, “I have an ID card.”

“Do you have a license?”

“No.”

“Have you ever taken the test? I asked.

She replied she had, but failed it.

“When did you fail it?”

The woman said, “In 1989.”

After hearing that, I told the translator I was impounding the car. The driver heard this and asked, “Why?”

Her husband then interrupted and said, “But she has an ID card.”

Was I missing something here? I thought it was pretty self explanatory. She last took the test and failed it 26 years ago! Since she failed the test, we’ve had four different presidents in office, the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended.

In my head I wondered why I was even here. An unlicensed driver crashed into a car with no lights. Then the unlicensed driver had the nerve to ask why when her vehicle was going to get impounded?

The only thing missing on this call were clowns and a monkey playing with a jack in the box on the corner.

Here’s the best part. This isn’t unusual for me. Something like this happens almost every night at work. Well, except the clowns. But one day that will change when a clown crashes on the way to a birthday party. It just has to happen because this is police work and anything goes. Even clowns.

The night Uber needed a taxi

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Badge415

Last week I pulled up to a collision call and saw three disabled vehicles in the road and one parked at the gas station on the corner. It seemed like there were a ton of people standing around being treated by fire personnel or speaking with officers. It was as if the cars threw up people all over the place.

Everyone was calm except for one loud mouth drunk who just liked to hear himself talk. He pretty much yelled the entire call and was downright obnoxious. His dumbness wasn’t directed at us, but he certainly was the fart in the elevator.

After a few minutes I figured out who was who in the zoo and started interviewing the drivers. One driver was stopped for a red light when his truck was turned into an accordion with four wheels. He was the first to get rear ended and was pushed into the car in front of him. The truck’s rear end was smashed and its front wheel broke off like it was a small Lego piece. One look at that poor truck and you knew it was going straight to car heaven.

I next spoke to an Uber driver, who told me the soon to be accordion was stopped behind him when they were rear ended. The impact turned his poor Uber mobile into a metal paper weight. The damage on that vehicle was bad. It was also getting a trip to car heaven.

I went on to interview the fourth driver and asked him what happened. In a weird twist, he was also an Uber driver with a carload of passengers.

The two Uber drivers were unrelated and just happened to be Ubering in the wrong place at the wrong time. At least they didn’t crash into each other. That would’ve been too weird.

I learned that both sets of Uber passengers had been drinking and did the responsible thing by getting a ride. Unfortunately, there was an unlicensed DUI driver behind them who wasn’t responsible. What are the odds of drunk people getting rear ended by a DUI driver?

And in the final twist of irony, we had to call a taxi to pick up some of the Uber passengers because they needed a ride.

You can’t make this stuff up.

“Was he in the crosswalk?”

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Badge415

There’s a certain detachment that I have about my job as a traffic cop. It’s simple. A crash goes out and I go. Whether it’s a minor fender bender or a fatal traffic collision, you go and do what needs to be done.

Once at the call we handle it, clear and move on to the next. There’s no time to get emotionally invested because of the nature of the job. I’m like a band-aide. Just a temporarily fix on the wound.

Later on I finish the report and staple the pages together. I walk over to the inbox in the traffic office and I toss it in. My role in that particular collision is over.

I never see the physical or emotional scars that were inflicted by the collision after I clear the scene. I’m not there for the pain and suffering, nor am I there for the funerals or physical therapy the injured have to go through.

I don’t remember their names or their license plate numbers. My memory only gets jogged about a crash when I drive down the street and pass certain locations. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s just better to keep an emotionally safe distance away from the injuries and death that happens every night.

It’s how I can keep doing this job and still feel like a normal person when I’m at home, away from the madness. That’s what works for me.

A few weeks ago I took a major injury collision involving a pedestrian on the west end of the city. He had already been transported to the hospital before I arrived. The only thing left in the street were his shoes, clothes and a lot of blood.

Once I cleared the scene, I moved on and wrote the report just like I always do. There was no attachment because I never saw the victim and I didn’t know anything about him, other than what was on my paper work.

On Friday, I had to call the victim’s daughter because she was trying to track down her father’s identification card. Part of me didn’t want to call because that would put a human voice to the report I had already turned in.

I spoke to her and explained that her father did not have an identification card in his wallet at the scene. The family couldn’t find it and she had no idea where it could be. She then said, “I don’t even know what happened.”

I instantly felt bad for her because he was in the hospital with life threatening injuries and she had no idea what happened.

I then told her how the collision occurred and what the witness said that night. I felt bad telling her he ran out in front of the car because I’m sure it gave her a visual to go with what her father looked like in the hospital.

When I was done explaining what happened she asked, “Was he in the crosswalk?”

“No.”

The word hung in the air like a thick fog that swallowed up everything around it as she took in what I just said.

I broke the silence by asking how her father was doing. I knew the injuries were major that night, but I didn’t have any further information about him. She started crying and told me the doctors suggested they pull the plug because he was in a vegetative state.

She sobbed and took a deep breath as she said, “I can’t do that to my father. God is good and I’m praying for a miracle.”

Her words were hard to hear because of the emotion and deep pain behind them. Even though she was a stranger, I still felt for the family. He was someone’s father.

I wished her luck and we concluded our call. There wasn’t much to say after that.

Before the phone call, the collision was another in a long list of fatal and major injury traffic accidents that I’ve handled. It was report, a piece of paper that I prepared and turned in. It was nothing personal. I was business.

After the phone call, it was different. Now there was a voice of pain and sadness attached to it. That’s just part of the job.