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Authorities say that distracted driving is dangerous. While this could be debated to a point, one Miami, Florida police officer recently found out exactly what averting one’s attention from the road can do. As we found out from CarScoop.com, it wasn’t responding to a distracted driving accident that opened this officer’s eyes, however. Rather, it was the officer’s own distracted driving that put this authority, let’s just say, up a pole. The ABC World News video coverage is above.
On Tuesday December 13th, Miami residents woke up to a crash near the intersection of NW 6th Street and 67th Street just before morning rush hour. When they looked out, they saw a police car not smashed into a power pole, but up it.
The police officer behind the wheel, Officer J. Brutus, was apparently reaching for a pen that he dropped when his car veered off the road and hit a guy-wire, propelling the car up ward toward the utility pole.
Electricity to the surrounding area had to be shut off while a fire crew assisted Brutus out of his car and back down to safety. Seemingly unaffected by the accident, Brutus got down to safety without a scratch and was even seen laughing at the scene by onlookers.
While we’d like to give this officer the benefit of the doubt, we have a hard time believing the story Brutus is telling his superiors. As you can see in the video, the intersection where the crash occurred has a 4-way stop. At the crash scene, however, one of the stop signs had mysteriously been plowed over. Does anyone else smell something fishy?
Many speculations have been made as to the real reason the officer found himself up a pole, including many involving texting or using a cell phone while driving. Even if that was the case, Florida is one of the only states that has no laws against texting or using your cell phone while operating a vehicle, giving this officer a seemingly free pass.
Brutus could face the loss of his take-home squad car or other disciplinary actions because of the crash. Thankfully, no one else was involved in this disctracted driving incident.
