Kia crashes into police car at intersection, but who should do it

The Kia driver was going too fast and braked too late, but did the police ignore the stop sign too?

As traffic control devices have evolved, stop signs have become much simpler. Instead of deciphering how to merge, what dangers to watch out for, or who to surrender to, they provide clear, unquestionable direction. In this story and the accompanying video, both a police officer and a Kia Forte driver ignore this simple instruction.

The accident happened in August, but the video is only now emerging. It happened at the corner of Mather and Gray streets in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Video from Primerica Education and Training Center shows the moment things went wrong.

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As the film begins, we see a police officer nonchalantly driving through a stop line at an intersection. As they accelerated slightly, a woman in a Kia swerved into the same intersection and failed to stop, braking too late to avoid hitting the police car. We could hear the tires skidding, but the collision happened anyway. The police SUV spun and the Forte was damaged, but both drivers appeared to be unharmed.

There is no doubt that the Kia driver made a huge error in judgment here. They apparently approached too fast and failed to pay attention to the stop sign, and things could have turned out much worse. At the same time, the police also received some criticism. Not only did they fail to stop at the stop sign, but they also failed to drive defensively. They either didn’t see the Kia because they weren’t looking, or they thought it was going to stop. To be clear, this is a four-way parker, even though the video doesn’t show that.

Now, it’s worth mentioning that it’s highly unlikely that the officer actually came to a full stop before this video began. If that’s the case, then he’s doing just fine before stop signs and stop lines. This is important because Wisconsin law requires drivers to “stop immediately before crossing this line.” Would the situation be different if the police were on their way to an emergency? perhaps. Is he? It doesn’t look like it.

Image source: Madcasper