A traffic incident in Boulder this afternoon resulted in a local driver being cited after their vehicle collided with a police sergeant's SUV. The sergeant was responding to an emergency, with vehicle lights and sirens promptly activated, when the crash occurred at the intersection of 28th and Valmont, according to Boulder Police Department. The sergeant had to be transported to the hospital as a precaution to be checked out.
The incident took place just before noon, with the sergeant driving a Ford Expedition and the other vehicle involved being a 2015 Volkswagen GTI. The driver of the Volkswagen, a 35-year-old Boulder man, was lucky enough to walk away without injury, but not without receiving a citation for failure to safely yield to an emergency vehicle. As the city's residents know, or ought to anyways, state traffic laws require drivers to quickly pull over for passing emergency vehicles, a directive, it appears, that went unheeded in today's crash.
Both vehicles involved in the incident sustained minor damage. The ebb and flow of midday traffic was, for a moment, ruptured by the telltale sounds of sirens and the subsequent crash, which now stand as a stark reminder of the importance of driver attentiveness especially near intersections. It's an issue that the Boulder Police Department doesn't take lightly, as evidenced by their post-incident statement urging community members to "always pay attention to their surroundings when driving."
The reminder comes with a set of guidelines for Boulder's drivers, they are to yield to emergency vehicles, maintain a safe following distance of at least 500 feet, and to be especially cautious when approaching stationary emergency vehicles with active lights and sirens, not to block intersections. Critical, too, is the call for heightened vigilance for pedestrians and cyclists, those most vulnerable amongst the asphalt and engines that carve through Boulder's streets, as outlined by Boulder Police Department.
