Minor traffic accident at Lock and E 7th.

I was having an Easter dinner with friends at the St. Paul's German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tarentum, when we heard a crash outside about 3:15 PM today. Some folks went out to see what had happened and it did not appear that there had been any serious injuries. The pictures below show the accident scene, and tell the story of what likely had happened a few minutes earlier in the collision between a pickup and an Allegheny County Police vehicle at the intersection of Lock and East Seventh in Tarentum.

It was pretty clear even from a distance that the police vehicle had hit the pickup on the side.

Coming closer to the scene I could see that the police car had hit the middle of the side of the pickup. Almost a bulls-eye.

There are two stop signs at this intersection, and each requires the traffic on East Seventh to stop before crossing Lock. This picture shows the stop sign the county police vehicle's driver would have seen at the intersection. There is no stop sign requiring the traffic on Lock to stop.

Some of Tarentum's finest came out to investigate the accident, but the position of the vehicles didn't leave much for anyone to guess about. My best guess is that the county police vehicle entered the intersection when it was not safe to do so.

This would be a bad spot for a speed bump, and I certainly don't think that a speed trap would have prevented the incident either.

File under : Tarentum, traffic, wierd