Florida: Road Ranger critically injured in 4-vehicle crash on Howard Frankland

The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating a 4-vehicle crash on the Howard Frankland Bridge that critically injured a Road Ranger on Thursday morning.A Road Ranger vehicle was one of four vehicles involved in the crash, which occurred around 7 a.m., which was in the southbound lanes, according to FHP. The Road Ranger has been identified as Omer Duncan. FHP says the pile-up started as a two-vehicle crash between a Dodge Pickup truck and a Chevy vehicle. Both vehicles were pulled off to the side of the road when the Road Ranger showed up, parking behind the two vehicles.  Moments later, FHP says a utility truck carrying drywall supplies veered off to the right for reasons unknown and struck the Road Ranger vehicle.

The utility truck also struck the Chevy passenger car, which was subsequently pushed into the Dodge pick-up truck. The utility truck overturned and came to final rest upside down after the initial impacts.

Rob Lee pointed to distracted drivers who don’t pay attention to the move over law. The law has been in effect for more than a decade and still many drivers don’t move over for emergency vehicles. “Even at this crash that my guy got into, when we were watching traffic go by, everybody had their phone pointed towards the crash, and they were almost causing accidents in the one lane we had open … So there is an enormous amount of distracted drivers on the road,” Lee said.

“I’ve gotten hit twice now. Yah, I’ve gotten hit twice. Same thing, aggressive driving and somebody rear ended me,” he added. “I feel that there’s a lot of entitlement when people are driving. It’s very aggressive especially in Tampa and they don’t care.”