Car accident stats: Colorado police to blame for many of them?

These days, many people are driving more responsibly and avoiding the dangers of texting while driving. Indeed, a Colorado car accident can happen in a blink of an eye, and drivers cannot afford to take their eyes off the road even for an instant. The same is true for police officers. Law enforcement officials, who have a great deal of technology and computers in their cars (and sometimes drinks and food), have a lot of distractions. They, too, must be careful not to get into an accident due to such distractions.

According to a recent report, hundreds of Colorado car accidents have been caused by distracted police officers in recent years. These accidents have been blamed on a variety of factors, including spilled drinks and accidentally discharged firearms. In fact, police in Denver have been blamed for causing a total of 308 accidents, which were deemed as preventable. State troopers have been blamed for causing another 219 crashes.

In one Colorado crash, a police officer in Boulder struck a 21-year-old bicyclist while she was crossing through an intersection legally. The force of the impact sent her flying across the hood of the patrol car and into the street. She suffered numerous personal injuries, including injuries to her legs, hips and back. However, she could not call an ambulance due to not having medical insurance and not having money to pay the medical bills that would result from her treatment.

Surprisingly, the officer who hit the cyclist failed to seek medical assistance for the young woman. Even worse, when she called police later to ask for money to pay for her destroyed bicycle, officers issued her with a citation for $50 because she did not have a bicycle lamp. The officer, on the other hand, did receive a citation in the incident — for striking a pedestrian who was legally in a crosswalk.

A Colorado car accident often occurs due to negligence, including when a person willfully fails to follow traffic laws and numerous other reasons. Nevertheless, whenever a person is injured in an accident due to the fault or negligence of another, even if the person at fault is a police officer, the accident victim can seek restitution for his or her injuries by filing a personal injury claim. As in the case of the young woman above, such restitution is often vital for uninsured individuals to pay for much-needed medical care.

Source: dailycaller.com, Distracted cops responsible for hundreds of car accidents, No author, Feb. 4, 2014