Hit-and-Run / City Signpost Damaged

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
December 15, 2007

Was it slick this afternoon? You bet.

This afternoon I watched a grey Dodge SUV (Durango?) back away from a city street signpost it had hit while trying to turn from westbound Calhoun Street to southbound Madison Street. I followed it south on Madison to South Street and then east on Lake Avenue.

As luck would have it, there was a Woodstock police officer right at the corner and I called to him that the grey vehicle in front of me had just damaged a city signpost and had driven away from it. He didn’t turn around.

As we headed toward the police station the driver of the grey SUV “goosed” it a few times to break the tires loose on the slick roadway and to swerve in the roadway. At about the police station he drove out of the travel lane into deeper snow on the edge of the roadway. Near the Woodstock Recreation Center he “goosed” it more times to break the tires loose. As he approached the red light at Route 47, there were cars stopping in front of him, and he stepped on the brakes hard enough to slide, and then he stopped.

After stopping, he started forward and slammed on the brakes, sliding to the left. Then he cut the wheels to the right and straightened out his vehicle. By that time I was on the phone with the Woodstock P.D., after I saw he had bumped into the car in front of him. The license plate on the Dodge was Illinois G11 8738.

The driver of the first car asked why he had started forward, and the driver of the SUV said he was on the phone. That’s really good, eh? Slick roads, traffic congestion, and he’s on the phone… I told the driver of the first car that I was on the phone with the PD, because the driver had hit a city sign and had driven away from it. An unmarked Woodstock police car arrived quickly. That was good, because the driver in the SUV really didn’t want the police there.

I told the officer that I would witness a damage-to-City-property complaint, but he told me I did not need to stay around. He directed the drivers into the 3 Brothers Restaurant parking lot. As he went to his own car, I asked him to check the driver of the SUV for legal documentation. The foul mouth of that driver should have earned him a disorderly conduct charge, but I didn’t push it.

I hope the officer ticketed the SUV driver for Careless Driving, but I guess I won’t find out. The police had their hands full this afternoon. Just a block back to the west, a driver in a pick-up rear-ended a car at Fremont, and who knows how many more needless accidents there were.

Although the streets were slick, they weren’t that bad, if you were careful.