This news is making the rounds fast and furious this afternoon: Virginia 5th District U.S. Representative Tom Perriello, a freshman Democrat seeking re-election against Republican Robert Hurt, a member of the Virginia Senate, was charged with making an unsafe lane change after he caused a traffic crash Friday night in Nottoway County that injured one person.
Here’s the story from the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th, was charged with making an unsafe lane change after a traffic crash Friday night in Nottoway County that injured one person.
Perriello was not hurt in the crash, and neither speed nor alcohol was considered a factor, according to Virginia State Police.
The incident happened after 8 p.m. near U.S. 460 eastbound at state Route 723, Lewiston Plank Road.
A 2005 Ford Ranger pickup truck driven by Perriello was traveling eastbound in the right lane when Perriello attempted to change lanes and struck a 1996 Ford Explorer. The Explorer ran off the roadway and into the median.
The driver of the Explorer, Sh’Vonta S. Montgomery, 26, of Crewe was not injured in the crash and was wearing her safety belt, according to police.
Montgomery had three passengers. State police said Ashley Robertson, 23, was seated behind Montgomery and was transported by ambulance to Farmville Medical Center to be treated for minor injuries.
Additional information on Robertson’s injuries was not available today.
The front-seat passenger and another backseat passenger, who is under the age of 8, were not injured and both were wearing their safety belts, state police said.
Our friend Jim Hoeft, at Bearing Drift, has recreated the scene with state of the art modern technology. Worth a peak.
UPDATE: Be sure to read the comments at the T-D. Best ones so far: “I just read the police report — He blamed it all on BUSH!” and “Perriello, un-Hurt.”
[...] Virginia 5th District Congressman Tom Perriello, a Democrat, spoke to the media yesterday regarding …, that was first reported yesterday, in which he was charged with an improper lane change, calling it, “one of those things that can happen anywhere.” The Congressman, driving a pickup, sideswiped a Ford Explorer carrying four people, it into a grassy median. A 23-year-old “banged her knee a little bit, and they insisted on taking her in” to the hospital he said. [...]
[...] that “Tom never met a red light he didn’t like.” I figured it was a reference to his illegal lane change last week in which he sideswiped another vehicle sending one woman to the ho…. But the e-mail included an article from Roll Call’s John McArdle which began: Besides nearly [...]
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