A cab driver suffered minor injuries after rear-ending a vehicle that stopped when a police officer attempted to pull over the cab for speeding.
The collision, now under investigation by traffic analysts, happened just before 4 p.m. Nov. 11 when an officer from the Integrated Road Safety Unit (IRSU) was conducting traffic enforcement northbound on Highway 17 at Amity Drive in North Saanich.
Staff-Sgt. Janelle Shoihet, senior media relations office for the BC RCMP, said the officer stepped out to stop the speeding cab. The vehicle travelling in the front of the taxi (which Shoihet described as a SUV) stopped with the taxi then rear-ending the vehicle. “It was described as full force,” she said, adding that both vehicles suffered “significant” damage. “Both were inoperable … and both had to towed.”
Shoihet said the driver of the SUV refused emergency health services and left on his accord. “The taxi driver was taken to hospital with what are believed to be minor injuries,” she said.
It is not clear by how much the cab driver exceeded the posted speed limit of 80 km/h. “I don’t know if the investigators have yet determined,” she said.
Police say it does not appear the cab driver was carrying a passenger.
When asked whether the officer followed procedures in pulling over the vehicle, Shoihet said that question would not be part of the on-going collision investigation.
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“It is something that would be directed internally. And I don’t think there is any internal matter that would be conducted as a result of this.”
IRSU consists of a number of municipal and RCMP members and the police vehicle was believed to be unmarked.
Wednesday’s incident happened after an incident not far from Amity Drive in September, when a single-vehicle crash in the northbound lane of Highway 17 triggered a collision in the southbound lane, when a vehicle hit a parked, unoccupied RCMP vehicle responding to the first collision on the other side of the highway.
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