The car and pickup were still on the road so I rode through the parking lots of the string of businesses along the road. Lots of patrolmen and emergency people were standing around. The businesses are small so there were only a half dozen people standing outside the businesses watching.
As I rode past the crash site I saw two totaled vehicles. The car was flattened from the front. The Bronco (?) SUV was laying on its side nearby. The crash was pretty much head on. Hwy 2 is four lanes with a full turn lane between the two north and two south lanes. So this was more than just drifting a little over the center line. The southbound car ended up facing north.The photo is from a news report.
The car was an unmarked highway patrol car. The driver died. The woman driving the SUV is in stable condition at the hospital. The news reported that the highway patrol said she wasn't wearing a seatbelt. The news didn't mention if the highway patrolman was wearing a seatbelt. The news and highway patrol always stress when a driver wasn't wearing a seatbelt when in an accident. I assume since he was a highway patrolman he was wearing a seatbelt. So either the news and highway patrol wants to downplay that seatbelts don't always work, or else they want to cover up that the patrolman wasn't wearing a seatbelt. When you look at the photo of the car the passenger compartment, while damaged, is intact. So if he was wearing his seatbelt you'd think he could have lived. Right?
After running my errand, when I returned I headed back towards the crash site. Again I rode my bicycle on the sidewalk and business parking lots on the southbound lane side. Two patrol officers standing and chatting on the northbound lanes started shouting at me well after I had passed their location on the road. *sigh*
I turned around and rode over to talk to the one officer coming my way.He was upset and started to chew me out until I told him:
- he was blocking the traffic and road on the northbound side, but not the sidewalk or the business lots on the other side of the road,
- I wasn't on the highway,
- No one stopped me when I rode through the other way only minutes earlier, including him,
- The detour was three miles on a narrow two lane road with no shoulders and not built to handle all the highway traffic now on it - and a dangerous place for me to ride my bicycle at that time,
- The safest place was for me to ride through the now empty business parking lots.
So I stood there while he went back to talk with his buddy. You can't argue with cops even if they seem to be acting dumb. Especially around here. Recently in the local news were stories of police arresting people for disorderly conduct because a person flipped them off. And one guy criticized the local police in a blog and got arrested. The full story is here. The local police appear to have thin skins.
I went and leaned my bicycle against a business sign and stood on the sidewalk. Then I realized I could go near the railroad tracks behind the businesses and I pushed my bicycle over there. I ended up with weed seeds all over my pants and shoes from walking behind the businesses but I got well around the accident area and was able to ride home. Good thing too as on the 6 pm news they said the road was still partially blocked while the highway patrol was marking the accident site in an effort to reconstruct how the accident happened. I would have been standing there for hours waiting for the road and sidewalk to be reopened. When I had ridden by earlier everyone seemed to be just standing around and waiting and doing nothing. Also I heard that another accident later occurred on one of the detour roads.
Too much excitement and stupidity. I was just glad to be back home.
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