When two DUI drivers crash into each other

Posted on September 6, 2015 by Badge415

A photo I took at one of our DUI check points.

A common theme of the blog is, “You just can’t make this stuff up.” The other night we had such a call. In fact, the cops on the call were still talking about it tonight.

The story starts out with two friends. We’ll call them Tom and Frank to make it easier. Tom went to visit Frank at his house. Tom and Frank decided to get drunk at the house, which was fine. But rather than stay at Frank’s house where they were safe, they decided to leave and drive in separate cars. You can probably see where this is going already.

Of course, it didn’t matter that they didn’t have driver’s licenses even though they have lived in California for over 10 years.

As they left the house, Frank was in front of Tom. Frank approached a stop sign at a major cross street and stopped. Unfortunately for Tom, he was drunk and his driving ability was about as good as a snake trying to play a piano.

Disaster was moments away for Tom as he was about to achieve Badge415 blog status. He rear ended Frank and rolled over onto his roof, sending glass all over the street. But wait, there’s more……

After the collision, Frank made a U-turn and stopped at Tom’s car. Tom crawled out and jumped into Frank’s car so they could get out of there before the cops showed up.

Frank drove 100 yards down the street to his house and pulled into the driveway. He made a clean get away except for one thing. Frank somehow felt the need to achieve Badge415 blog status also. As he pulled into his driveway he sideswiped his roommate’s truck. Frank was now at fault for the second collision after being the “victim” of the first. Tom was the suspect of the first collision and a passenger in the second.

DUI investigations were conducted on both drivers and they were arrested for driving while under the influence. They went from one house to the Big House all because they chose poorly.

You couldn’t make this story up even if you tried. It was a lot of extra work, but it was worth it. It wouldn’t be a “normal” police shift without some type of craziness to shake things up.

What do you say to a driver with a blind person’s cane?

Posted on August 24, 2015 by Badge415

The other night I responded to an injury collision involving three cars. When I arrived, I saw the usual sight of crashed cars and a fire truck on scene. One of the vehicles was in the middle of the intersection. The other car was up against a traffic signal pole and a third car was parked off to the side.

The car in the middle of the intersection had two women in it. The driver was in her late 60s to early 70s and the passenger was at least ten years older. They both had a frail look. I stood at the door and spoke to the driver through the window as fire personnel worked on the passenger. After I was done I went to speak to the other drivers.

One of the other drivers told me how she had made a left turn when she was hit by a car. The collision caused her to spin around and hit a third car and then a pole.

After I was done speaking to all three drivers, I noticed the woman from the first car was still in the driver seat. I walked up to her and asked if she wanted a tow truck. She told me she was waiting for another ambulance to take her to the hospital. The firefighters were standing off to the side and I didn’t know they had called for another ambulance.

I was standing at the driver door when I noticed she was folding up a blind person’s cane. It’s not every day that you see a driver with a blind person’s cane. It kind of raised a red flag.

“Is that your cane,” I asked as I tried not to laugh.

“No. it’s hers,” as she pointed to the passenger seat. “Mine is the walker in the backseat.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. I wasn’t expecting that answer.

It goes to show that you never know what you’re going to hear at a traffic collision. After all these years, that was the first time I ever asked a driver if they owned a blind person’s cane.

“She has brain matter coming out of her head.”

Posted on August 20, 2015 by Badge415

I pulled up to the accident scene and saw a car that looked like the Incredible Hulk had just torn it open and tossed it into a pole like an empty Coke can. Half the car was crushed beyond recognition was headed to car heaven.

My first thought was to check on the victim to see if this was going to be a fatal collision. As I walked up to the ambulance an officer spotted me and said, “She’s has a major head injury.”

That didn’t surprise me after looking at the car. The same officer then said, “She has brain matter coming out of her head.”

The words “brain matter” and “car accident” are never a good combination under any circumstances.

I decided to peek into the ambulance just to see if I could learn some more information about the injuries. I expected to see the paramedics franticly trying to save her life, but instead they were talking to victim in a normal voices.

Looking at the scene and then inside the ambulance was like turning the radio from a heavy metal station to a classical music station. One was chaotic and the other was peaceful.

Something didn’t look right here. People with brain matter coming out of their head usually don’t look that good. I could see her blood socked hair, but she looked remarkably well given the circumstances.

I looked back at the officer and said, “She’s talking.”

“But it’s a bad injury,” the officer replied.

I stuck my head back in the ambulance again and saw the victim having a normal conversation with the paramedics. I pulled my head back out and said, “But she’s talking.”

The fire captain then got out of the ambulance and smiled at me like he usually does when we see each other. We shook hands as I asked, “How bad is she?”

“She might have a punctured lung,” he said.

No hint of death and no mention of brain matter coming out of her head. I asked him about the head injury. The captain told me she had a large laceration, but she was going to survive. Now I was really confused.

I shrugged it off and went about my business as I handled the scene. I had dispatch send an officer to the hospital to check on the victim’s status just in case.

Later on, the officer from before walked up to me and said she wanted to show me something. She had taken a closer look at the car and saw something that explained the “brain matter” she had seen coming out of the victim’s head.

She pointed to a pizza box in the twisted wreckage and all of our questions were answered as if a giant light came down on us from the pizza gods in the sky.

It turned out the “brain matter” had been pizza that flew out of the box after the car had been broadsided, spun around and struck a pole. It explained everything and it was truly one of the funniest things ever from a collision scene.

The victim not only survived a nasty car accident, but also the flying pizza.

In my experience, brain matter usually looks like tapioca pudding. But in the officer’s defense, flying pizza could’ve also looked like brain matter if it was mixed in with blood soaked hair.

I’m just glad there wasn’t pineapple on the pizza. That would’ve just confused everyone even more.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

This job is sometimes like the Twilight Zone

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Badge415

During the opening credits of the Twilight Zone TV show, Rod Serling says, “You’ve just crossed over into… the Twilight Zone.”

It sometimes feels like I cross over into the Twilight Zone as soon as I put my uniform on. That’s part of the fun of the job because you never know what you’re going to see while on the street.

The other night there was a truck in the parking lot of a city park that wasn’t able to start. The truck had a camper shell on the back where its owners, a husband and wife, slept at night. The truck was basically a 3,000lbs tent on wheels.

When the park closed they needed to move the truck to avoid a parking ticket. Their plan was to push the trunk onto the street so they could sleep in it for the night.

One transient sat in the driver seat and two others got behind the truck to push. They then started pushing the truck through the parking lot toward the street. It was like an urban bobsled team at this point.

The truck went down the driveway as the driver made a right turn onto the street. She then made another right turn to where they wanted to park. The new bobsled team was doing such a great job they ran into a parked car.

Of course, it wasn’t just any parked vehicle. It was a parked car with two transients inside, who were sleeping. After the collision, they jumped out and saw the “driver” run away, as she left her bobsled teammates behind.

The victims were upset and started arguing with the vehicle’s owners.

When I got there we separated everyone to try and figure out what happened. Out of nowhere, one of the owners pointed to one of the victims and said, “He ran over my cat.”

“What cat?” I asked.

“My cat. He hit my cat.”

“When?”

“A while ago. I had the cat since she was 3 days old.”

“Did he run it over on purpose?”

“It was under his car when he drove away,” she replied.

How did I go from talking about a hit and run crash to talking about a cat? Then I remembered this was police work. Anyone who has put the badge on knows it can be as random as a pin ball game at the arcade.

After I was done speaking with the owners, I walked over to the front of their truck and saw a chain holding the hood down to the front bumper. It just looked weird, but then again, everything about this call was odd.

The call was finally resolved when the victims said they wanted to find another place to sleep for the night. They got into their vehicle and drove away.

It was just one of those calls that you can’t make up. The only thing missing were circus animals and a big tent.

Did I Jinx That Guy?

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Badge415

Have you ever jinxed someone, but didn’t know it?

A few weeks ago I was at a red light right after leaving the police department parking lot. While I was stopped, a guy rode by me on a bicycle who was pulling a shopping cart. That was something I hadn’t seen before. Lately, I’ve been seeing bicyclist pulling suitcases, but not shopping carts.

I thought to myself how I’ve never taken a crash with a guy on a bike who was pulling a shopping cart before. It was a quick thought that I forgot as soon as I said it.

About 7 hours later I was sent to an injury collision involving a bicycle and a vehicle on the west side of the city. When I got there, the officers told me the fire department had already come and gone after the injured rider refused aid. There was a witness standing by, so I spoke to her first.

The witness told me where she was standing when she saw the crash. She described how he was riding the wrong way on the street and how he crossed directly in front of the vehicle when the collision occurred.

She said, “He was pulling a shopping cart.”

Of course, that made the call more interesting now. “He was? Where’s the cart?”

“Yeah, it’s still in the street,” she said as she pointed.

I looked and sure enough, there was a shopping cart that was knocked over in the street. The bicycle was damaged beyond repair and was lying next to the cart.

I had jinxed the guy for sure.

I then spoke to the bicyclist and asked him what happened. He gave me a slightly different version of how the collision occurred, but it was close enough. I looked at the rear wheel of the bicycle and saw that it was bent and twisted from the collision. It was more a paper weight than a bicycle now.

After I was done with the investigation, the rider asked, “What do I do with my bike?”

“Do you want to put it in the shopping cart?” I asked.

By the look on his face, it wasn’t the answer he was looking for. With a bit of a pout he walked over to the cart and picked it up. He then lifted the bicycle into the air and half threw it into the shopping cart with a frustrated look on his face. The bike landed hard in the cart and caused it to tip over with a loud crash that echoed in the night.

It was actually pretty funny to watch.

The rider stood there in the street with a defeated look on his face as his shoulders sagged. He then pulled the bicycle out and got the shopping cart back up on its wheels again.

Now it was time to watch operation bicycle in a shopping cart 2.0.

He lifted the bicycle up in the air and put it in the cart with more care this time. He picked up the rest of his belongings and was able to push the cart out of the street. The cart looked funny with half of the bike sticking up in the air like it was doing a wheelie.

It just proves that you can’t make this stuff up.

This job cracks me up

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Badge415

Every night there always seems to be some type of comedy going on. You can go from one call to the next with crazy things happening that you could never think of. Those are the calls that make this job fun and make up for the bad experiences.

Tonight a pedestrian ran across the street against a red light. There was cross traffic at the time and a car almost hit him. After the near miss, the pedestrian turned toward that car and gave the driver the middle finger as he threw out F-bombs.

That when he was then struck by another car……That by itself was funny. You can’t make that up, but the comedy continued.

Luckily the pedestrian wasn’t hurt and there was no damage to the car. The driver was shaken from the experience and we sent her on her way with a report number. We then had to deal with the pedestrian, who was under age.

He didn’t know his address, despite living in the same location for the last year, so we gave him a ride home. When we arrived at his home we spoke to his sister because his mother was at work.

She looked at him and said, “Really? You can’t obey a light?”

“I thought I was going to make it, but I didn’t make it at the end,” the pedestrian said as he laughed.

“You can’t even wait for the little man to light up so you can walk?” she said.

She then made me laugh when she told him, “Even if you’re blind you can see it.” She looked at us and said, “Give him a ticket.”

She was great with the way she spoke to her brother, but she might as well have been talking to a wall. Everything was going in one ear and out the other. After she was done giving him a tongue lashing, we walked back to our patrol cars with a good story to tell for later.

Here’s the best part. It turned out the pedestrian’s name was Angel and the witness was Moses.

There’s no way you can make this stuff up.

The girl with perfect glasses

Posted on July 22, 2015 by Badge415

A few weeks ago I was in a store with my daughter when she told me she wanted to buy clear glasses. I asked her why she wanted those. She said, “They’re cute.”

Well, they weren’t that cute for $12. As we walked to the car, I told her those glasses reminded me of a story from work. After I got done telling them the story, both of my kids shook their heads in amazement.

One night it was raining when I was dispatched to a hit and run collision in which the victim was chasing the suspect. The victim didn’t know where she was at and we couldn’t find her.

The call then got really confusing when someone else called 911 related to the collision. Dispatch got a call from some guy who said he was a passenger from the suspect vehicle, but he was now a passenger in the victim vehicle. He didn’t know where he was either.

Confused?

The call was so confusing I finally told dispatch I was going to park at Target and the victim could find me since we couldn’t locate her. A few minutes later she showed up alone. A carload of her friends also showed up because she called them.

The victim told me she was rear ended by a car that took off. She chased after the car until it drove into a cul-de-sac. Once in the cul-de-sac, the car stopped and a male passenger got out. The suspect vehicle then took off again, but left the male there.

The male ran up to her car and got into the passenger seat and told her to chase after the suspect, which she did.

At that point, there were two people in the victim vehicle calling 911.

During the chase they lost the suspect vehicle and the guy told her to stop. He got out of the car and took off too. Of course, she had no idea where she left him because she was lost herself. We never found that guy. It was probably better that way. If he needed the cops he would’ve called back.

While I was talking with her, I noticed that the lenses on her glasses were really clear. My lenses were spotted from working in the rain that night, but her lenses were in perfect condition. They were almost too perfect.

“Do you have lenses in your glasses?” I asked.

“No,” she said it with a straight face.

After an awkward silence I asked, “Why would you wear glasses with no lenses?”

“I have a fat face. They make me look thinner.”

I actually busted up laughing in front of her. I couldn’t help it. This was just a weird call. You can’t make this stuff up.

But it’s not my fault

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Badge415

There’s a something funny that happens when a person finds out they’re at fault when they rear end another car. You would think it was pretty obvious who was at fault in that situation, but sometimes there’s drama when they ask.

The rear end collision is one of the most common I go. You would think this particular type of collision would be the easiest to avoid since the car was right in front of the other driver. There’s no surprises here. The car was either moving, slowing down or stopped.

After the collision the driver will sometimes ask if they’re at fault for rear ending the car. I actually think it’s funny when they ask that. That’s like a baseball player dropping an easy fly ball and asking if it was his fault.

They other night I went to a rear end collision where the driver was shocked when she found out she was at fault for crashing into the vehicle in front of her. She was going 40 miles per hour while following a vehicle less than a car length behind when the car stopped in front of her.

Of course, she didn’t have time to stop and crashed into the car. One person went to the hospital and one of the cars had to be towed. She then wanted to debate and argue with me when she asked if she was at fault.

There’s something that happens to people who can’t believe they’re at fault when they rear end a car. I call this the “I can’t believe I’m at fault” reaction.

First there’s the look of disbelief. Their eyes get wide, the jaw clinches, the head goes back and the upper body makes an involuntary jerk to the rear. They then shake their head side to side like it’s going to go away.

This particular reaction comes in different levels of disbelief, which makes it funnier at times. The reaction can be very slight to down right drama.

Once the reaction has been displayed I try and explain to the driver that they have to drive at a speed and distance that is safe for the conditions.

Whenever the person hears that they come back with, “But I was.” They say this without realizing that they just crashed into the back of a car that was stopped in front of them.

If they had been driving at a speed and distance that was safe for the conditions I would still be sitting in Starbucks rather than standing in the street with them.

Never mind that there’s an ambulance and a fire truck taking the victim away, who was just violently assaulted from behind by a 3,000lbs object on four wheels.

The process of explaining this can be painful at times, because the driver is in defensive mode. At that point they just want to debate.

There finally comes a point where nothing I say is good enough. That’s when I bring out this one simple sentence that works every time. It’s the “I should’ve had a V8” moment for the driver who is arguing with me.

I say, “You just can’t around hitting cars.”

Once the person hears that they stop arguing. Sometimes they display the “I can’t believe I’m at fault” reaction again. That means I get to see their body involuntarily jerk backwards again, along with the jaw clenching and shake of the head. This time the eyes don’t get wide. They instead squint like the villain from a Disney movie.

Too bad I can’t say what I really want to…….. ” You just can’t go around hitting shit.”

Last month was out of control

Posted on June 1, 2015 by Badge415

“Does every city have the same problems with crashes that we do or is it just us?”

That was the question I asked one of my traffic partners on Sunday morning after handling six traffic collisions that night, which included two DUI crashes.

“I think it’s just us,” was his reply.

I have kept track of the number of collisions I’ve handled since I started working in the traffic detail in January of 1999. It turned out May of 2015 was a little out of control in the city where I work. That’s why I was glad to see June 1st on the calendar.

It was actually the second highest total in my career for the number of traffic collision reports I took in one month. The grand total for May was 54 crashes. After last month I can’t imagine what the summer months are going to be like.

The national statistics related to traffic collision deaths in the United States has gone down over the last decade, but it seems like the number of collisions we handle has gone up.

Right before the recession started, traffic collisions were out of control every single night. I called it the Wild West because it seemed like every pole in the city was being crashed into nightly. It also seemed like every drunk driver took a detour through the city.

Then the recession hit and things really calmed down around 2009 and 2010. It was a like a ghost town some nights with no one crashing, which was good. It was nothing like the rest of the 2000s.

Since then I’ve seen a gradual increase in accidents and the volume of work that we do. It’s like the Wild West again and business is booming, which is not good for the average driver in my city.

I guess this means the recession is truly over because there are tons of people out there crashing like never before. It also means I might break my record if things continue the way they are.

One thing is for sure, I won’t break my record in June. It’s not because everyone is going to be careful. It’s because I’ll be on a cruise ship for a week and I’ll have a margarita in my hand instead of a flashlight and a clipboard.

Remember to keep your eyes open out there because we don’t want to meet by accident.

Do you know how many people died today in traffic collisions?

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Badge415

How important is traffic safety to you?

How many people were killed in the time it took you to watch your favorite TV show? Do you know how many people were killed in the time it took you to drive to work, pick up your kids and go to soccer practice?

How important is this subject to you?

Now, try asking how important this subject is to the person who lost their husband, wife, son, daughter, grandmother, grandpa or child in a traffic collision. Try asking someone who has permanent back pain after being involved in a collision.

How important is this subject to them? It’s more important than you know.

32,719 people were killed in traffic collisions in the United States in 2013. That’s an average of 89 people a day. Every day.

That’s almost an average of 4 people an hour.

Ask any officer or firefighter who has been to a fatal collision. They’ll tell you how it didn’t have to happen. They’ll also tell you how many times they’ve seen carelessness take a life away.

The most painful sound to hear is a family screaming and crying after being told that their loved one was killed in a car accident. It’s the type of sound that stays with you. It’s the type of sound that hurts to listen to it.

You can feel if vibrating through your bones as each cry seems to pass through you like a cold wind on a winter day. It bites and cuts through you. It makes you shiver.

The sound eventually leaves, but it lingers like fingers grabbing at your heart to tug at it. You try to ignore it, but you can’t.

If every person heard that sound, it would scare them into being a safer driver. If every person could walk with me as I stepped over body parts at a collision scene, they would understand what it means to be a safer driver.

If every person knew what it was like to look at the bottom of their boots to make sure there was no flesh or brains in the groves, they would be a safer driver.

If every driver knew what a burning car with people inside smelled like, they would want to be a safer driver.

And finally, if every person could see what a child looks like after their head was run over by a car, they too would want to be a safer driver.

It’s these sights, smells and sounds that have made me be a safer driver. Now, let’s talk about that question I asked in the beginning.

How important is this subject to you?

Pass this along to someone and let’s try and get people to be safer drivers.