Last week, in a frightening accident that occurred on the Capital Beltway just outside Washington DC, a semi-truck driver side-swiped a police cruiser as the officer was writing another motorist a ticket. According to a report by WUSA 9, the accident occurred in the early morning hours on the outer loop, near Colesville Road.
Evidently, the semi-truck came up upon the police cruiser and the other vehicle, crashed into them, and then continued to travel down the highway for another 100 or so yards before it jack-knifed across several lanes. The massive force involved in the accident ruptured one of the truck’s fuel tanks, sending diesel fuel all over the highway, causing additional concern.
Both the police officer and the motorist he had pulled over were taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries and are expected to recover fully from their injuries. The Outer Loop was closed for about 5 hours as police and emergency crews clean up the scene and conducted the accident reconstruction.