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Wrong-way drivers nearly hit Tampa police officer
Jordan Bowen reports
TAMPA, Fla. - Dash cam video captured the moment when a Tampa police officer nearly collided head-on with a pair of wrong-way drivers.
Officer Scott Van Treese was behind the wheel of his marked cruiser transporting a DUI suspect to jail when his dash cam caught both vehicles going the wrong way. He immediately called it into dispatch. He told FOX 13 that he didn't even have time to think. He only had time to react by swerving his vehicle onto the shoulder.
"I didn't have time to think. Literally, as soon as I saw the headlights it was just a shock. I just pulled over immediately and let them go by," Van Treese said.
Early Sunday morning, around 2:30 a.m., he was traveling eastbound on the Selmon Expressway, and it appeared both vehicles – a small sedan and a white van – got on at 78th Street. Both were heading west on a one-way street.
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Van Treese said, since he's joined the Tampa Police Department, he's had three separate incidents where he had to dodge wrong-way drivers. He believes both drivers in Sunday's incident may have been intoxicated.
"Impaired drivers had a tendency to tailgate each other. It's very common that when we find drunk drivers that they're right on the back of another vehicle. My only assumption is, is that maybe that person in the white van was impaired and was tailgating the car in front of him and just one drunk following another drunk," Van Treese said.
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Wrong-way drivers nearly hit TPD officer
A Tampa police officer was nearly hit head-on by a pair of wrong-way drivers early Sunday morning.
Police are still looking for both vehicles. Anyone with information is asked to call Tampa police at 813-276-3200.