WFLA NBC Channel 8 On Your Side News reported recently that a Polk County Sheriff’s Office deputy is considered lucky to be alive after a terrifying motor vehicle accident along Interstate 4 on the evening of Friday, March 12, 2021.
According to officials with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office as well as spokespeople from the Florida Highway Patrol, the incident took place on the evening of Friday, March 12, 2021 in Polk County, along the busy Interstate 4 corridor. A Polk County Sheriff’s Office Deputy was parked behind a Florida Highway Patrol trooper along Interstate 4 at an incident scene. When he attempted to pull onto the road with his emergency lights activated, he entered the path of a tractor-trailer, which struck his vehicle, driving it into the FHP trooper’s car and into the grass, where it grazed another car on the shoulder.
The Polk County Sheriff stated they were lucky there weren’t casualties. He pointed out that under Florida’s “move over” law, the truck driver should have slowed down by about twenty miles per hour or changed lanes to give the incident scene some space. A Florida Highway Patrol spokesperson says charges are currently pending. 159 crashes were caused in 2020 by drivers not obeying the move over law.
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