INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana State Police are making a critical plea to drivers after numerous crashes involving several troopers in the last few months.
ISP reports nine different troopers have either been struck themselves or their patrol vehicles have been struck by cars along the side of Indianapolis interstates just in the last two months.
State Police are now urging drivers to follow the state’s “move over” law so they too can get home safely.
FOX59/CBS4 spoke with Trooper Haley Howard who recalls the cold and icy February morning when a car came racing towards her and her shift partner along I-70.
“Before we knew it, we just heard tires screeching,” Howard described.
She and her shift partner were tending to a crash in the far-left lane of I-70 East. As they tended to that car, another wreck unfolded right in front of them.
“A driver just came too fast in the lane we had taken and hit his car and then it pushed the other trooper’s car into my car,” she described. “Then there was a series of other collisions, maybe three to four after that.”
Neither Howard nor the other trooper were in their cars. While hers still has a few dents and scratches, she said the other patrol car was totaled.
“It is an everyday occurrence,” Howard said. “It is something we constantly have to stay on high alert about. When the collision happened, I was actually facing [the oncoming car], so I saw him coming. And that’s the part we have to do on the road. We have to stay cognizant at all times. Never let your guard down.”
She is just one of nine troopers to experience this in the first few months of 2024. In January, a car struck and seriously injured 22-year-old trooper Azariah Keith after changing a motorist’s tire on I-65.
“We’re at this point just begging people to just move over,” Howard said. “If you see lights, it doesn’t have to be just emergency lights, if you see a vehicle on the left or right shoulder, anywhere in the roadway with their hazards on, it is your job and the law to move over.”
While Howard escaped this close call without injury, she said that will not always be the case unless drivers do their part.
“We have got to get the general public to slow down because it could mean the difference in lives,” she said.
Meanwhile, ISP said Trooper Keith has since been released from the hospital and is recovering at home. The agency is hopeful for a full recovery and a return to regular duty.
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