It appears as if an off-duty Michigan State Police Trooper struck two teenagers from behind while they walked along a country road in Ionia, Michgian today. The news stories are linked here, here, and here. While this is certainly a tragedy, every report I can find on this accident seems slightly strange to me – so strange I had to take a few minutes to write about it.
PROBLEM 1. The news stories indicate that the Michigan State Police are investigating the accident. Is there going to be any confidence in the results of the Michigan State Police accident investigation, when the only driver was an off-duty State Trooper? Why don’t we just let the driver write the report? Thankfully for the family, there seems to be a number of people who witnessed the accident (at least there are several people in the comments section of one online article making the claim). One witness claims that the officer did not swerve and did not hit the brakes until after the collision.
PROBLEM 2. Just hours after most other crashes, the news reports typically say something along the lines of “it is unknown if drugs or drugs were a factor in the crash.” As if the uncertainty makes us wonder if the driver was drunk or high. However each story about the accident in Ionia seems to indicate that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.
I guess we will have to wait for the official report to come out, to see if it truly is impartial.