St. Louis Police Car T-Bones Pontiac on Chippewa (Update w/Police Summary)
Earlier this afternoon a St. Louis police car t-boned a silver Pontiac Bonneville on Chippewa just east of Hampton. The Pontiac ended up in the parking lot of the corner Walgreen’s store after running through a planter area. I do not know any details of the accident at this time. I have contacted the Director of Public Relations for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Dept but at this time he has not responded (it is a lovely Sunday afternoon). When I hear back from the police I will post an update at the end of this post.
In the image above you can see the damage to the Pontiac and where it ended up, both front airbags went off.
Above is the view seen from across the street — at first I could not tell what the police car had hit.
Both cars are loaded on flat-bed wreckers while the fire department hoses off the fuels fluids and debris from the accident. A local TV station has a camerwoman filming while spectators look on. On a positive note I was glad to see that street trees finally got planted in front of the Dobbs location on Chippewa.
I hope everyone in both vehicles are OK. I don’t know enough about accidents to determine if this was a low-speed or high-speed accident. I’m very curious to know if the officer(s) in the patrol car was wearing a seat belt — I seldom see St. Louis Police doing so. In the county it is a mixed bag — some do and some do not. I know officers tend to get in and out of their car a lot but I would like to see them wearing their seatbelts for their own safety.
UPDATE 6/18/2007 @ Noon:
This just in…
INCIDENT:Â Â DEPARTMENT ACCIDENT
LOCATION:Â 5845 Chippewa
DATE/TIMES:Â 06/17/2007Â 11:46
NEIGHBORHOOD: South Hampton
Department Vehicle PPO Phillip Cornell
W/F, 6/1/1918SYNOPSIS: Officer Cornell was driving west on Chippewa approaching Hampton when Vehicle #2, traveling east on Chippewa, attempted to make a left turn onto the Walgreens’ parking lot, turning into the path of the officer. He was unable to stop and struck the vehicle. Both drivers were conveyed to Barnes Hospital for treatment. Officer Cornell was treated for injuries to his right arm, legs and chest. He was listed in stable condition. Driver #2 was admitted with multiple abrasions to her face and a pelvic fracture. She was listed in stable condition. The Department Vehicle sustained major front end damage; Vehicle #2 sustained major side damage.
It looks like someone either turned left in front of someone else or was trying to cross Chippewa between Hampton Village and Dobbs/Walgreens. It’s an existing condition and a traffic engineering issue/problem – these specific curb cuts, for both centers, are too close to the intersection to be really safe. The one on the south side (into Hampton Village) is redundant (there’s another one ±200′ further east) and should be removed to reduce incidents like this one (the same goes for three of the four [!] curb cuts on Hampton south of Chippewa). And, ideally, the Dobb’s/Walgreens curb cut should be a right turn in, right turn out only arrangement – no left turns, no diagonally across Chipppewa into Hampton Village. As with many things in St. Louis, it boils down to political will. The shopping center and the businesses will fight to keep every access point they can, the traffic engineers will push to remove as many as possible, and it boils down to our local politicians making the final decision . . .
When “it boils down to our local politicians making the final decision”, you can be assured that it will cater to the car culture and not for public safety. Curb cuts throughout the area have been made with convenience to auto drivers as the primary consideration. Forget about pedestrians as most businesses here see auto drivers as there primary customers. Our laws, enforcement of these laws, and our daily encounters are dominated by the car culture.
Also highly problematic is the curb cut for the Target store surface parking lot. Even turning right out of that location is very difficult at most times of the day, but especially on weekends.
Although I wonder why the driver didn’t just plan ahead a little bit, use the left-turn arrow to go from EB Chippewa to NB Hampton, then turn into the Walgreens from Hampton. Then again, I think I made the same turn just last weekend.
Would a signal at Hampton and Lindenwood help or make matters worse, I wonder?
Certainly, traffic at this location is unlikely to decrease anytime soon.
Wow that’s weird, the police report seems to suggest innocence on the officer who T-boned, and guilt on the recipient of the T-boning.
I wonder if this jives with the traffic light cameras at Chippewa and Hampton which have probably been erased by now?
Would the same conclusion be expressed in the police report if it were two joe 6-packs involved in the boning?
Another weird thing that strikes me is that the police showed up to the scene, something I can not seem to get them to do in my neighborhood.
There was no light there to control traffic movement, so it would make sense that the female driver was at fault for making a left turn without yielding. The red light camera for westbound traffic would not have captured any of this, and the eastbound camera is likely not focused on that area.
While cops can be among the worst drivers on the road, it doesn’t make sense that the officer would be at fault in this case.
Yes, if the police report is correct, the driver turning left without a signal would be at fault. It would have been her responsibility to yield to ALL traffic in ALL directions before turning.
Kristen,
My point exactly.
The driver turning left without a signal would be at fault, “if the police report is correct.”
That is if the driver was actually turning left, and actually turning left without a signal. The driver would not be at fault if she was turning left while signaling and was T-boned by a speeding police officer without emergency lights on.
I just think it is funny that the report points the finger at the other driver from the start immediately after the accident with very limited investigation. To me it is a glimpse into the standard operating procedure or “blue code” within the police department. The same “blue code” that earned the vice drug cops a slap on the wrist for getting caught while routinely stealing evidence during the World Series.
In my experience with the city police, they do not come when called. They show up around 45 minutes to 3 hours later and take some quick notes, explain why they can not collect any evidence or catch the crook and leave. Then they say you can get your police report within 10 days at City Hall.
It sounds like the other driver really got pounded also – “multiple abrasions to her face and a pelvic fracture.” Ouch !
It doesn’t matter if she was using her signal or not – turning left from a public street into a private driveway requires that the driver yield to all oncoming traffic, so unless there are major extenuating circumstances, she has to be at fault. More than likey, someone stopped in the left westbound lane “let her through” when there was little, if any, obstruction in the right lane, where the cop was (with little or no time to react) – it’s a poorly designed area and near misses happen a lot here.
Actually newer suburban areas with intersections adjacent to shopping centers are safer – you can’t have curb cuts this close to major intersections. It does nothing to help pedestrians or cyclists, but does minimize left-turn conflicts like this one.
So, if suburban areas “are less safe”, why did my auto insurance experience a big bump in cost when I moved from Kirkwood to South City?!
Because of the higher likelihood of auto theft.
The insurance went up on all three vehicles, including two that don’t have comprehensive insurance (which would pay for theft), they only have liability – the only conclusions are that the odds of being involved in an accident are higher (statistically poorer-quality driving and/or a more-challenging driving environment) and/or the costs of dealing with legal issues in the city court system are higher (bigger awards for questionable cases).
As Jim Zavist already pointed out, the person turning across traffic has to yield. Even if the other car (the police cruiser in this case) was exceeding the speed limit, the other driver would still be primarily at fault.
Two years ago I was in the same unfortunate situation as the cop in this case, although mine was on northbound Grand just north of Lafayette. Some guy turned when waved through by other stopped traffic and *bang* the side of his brand-new Jeep met the middle. My nice, well-cared-for, high-mileage ’94 Volvo wagon got shortened a few inches. I was only going 30–within the speed limit for that area. Just making an off-the-cuff evaluation from the photos and realizing that a Chevy isn’t the same as a Volvo, I’d say it doesn’t look like the cop could have been in too much excess of the speed limit.
Unlike others, the police were there nearly instantly after my call. The other driver went into a tirade against me and that it was my fault, and the cop told him to shut up or he’d get cited for failure to yield rather than simply having the report written up.
So, considering that I’m Chris Sixpack, and the other guy in the Jeep was Joe Random Sixpack (no relation to me), I’d say that the police are at least consistent with my experience with a similar situation.