A pursuit of a suspected intoxicated driver on eastbound Interstate 8 near Lakeside ended as a California Highway Patrol officer put himself in harm’s way and intentionally crashed into her truck to prevent her from causing a crash, authorities said.
The CHP was told of a slow-moving silver Ford F-150 on eastbound Interstate 8 east of Lake Jennings Park Road shortly after 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Officer Kevin Pearlstein said.
An officer in a marked patrol car tried to pull over the driver, later identified as Linda Faye Bryans, 53, of Lakeside, but she sped off, Pearlstein said.
Bryans allegedly turned around and headed toward oncoming traffic near Dunbar Lane and the fast-thinking officer acted to stop her from causing a wrong-way wreck.
Pearlstein said the officer intentionally rammed the side of Bryans’ pickup truck. The crash that resulted from the maneuver disabled the wrong-way driver’s truck, which came to rest on top of the patrol car’s hood.
Bryans was arrested without incident on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, and was later booked into the Las Colinas Detention Facility.
According to the CHP, under state law, anyone convicted of being under the influence while driving and attracting the attention of authorities, “is responsible for the costs associated with a public agency’s emergency response to the incident.” As a result, in hopes of serving as a deterrent to drunk driving, the CHP bills perpetrators to recover costs.
Those funds go to the Motor Vehicle Account, which is largely supported by drivers’ vehicle registration fees. Ultimately, according to officials, the cost recovery “holds impaired drivers accountable for their actions by holding them criminally and financially responsible.”
– City News Service contributed to this report.
