ST. GEORGE — A pickup truck slammed into a minivan during a crash at dawn Monday in St. George.
The incident happened when a Ford pickup traveling on East 450 North stopped at a stop sign at the intersection of North 2450 East at about 7 a.m. After stopping, the pickup traveled through the intersection and slammed into a southbound minivan.
The driver of the pickup told police he didn’t see the minivan because it was driving without its headlights on, St. George Police officer Tiffany Atkin said.
However, when St. George News arrived on the scene, the one headlight that survived the impact was illuminated.
Both vehicles were severely damaged and needed to be towed from the scene. The driver of the pickup was cited for failure to yield after stopping, Atkin said.
The woman driving the minivan received a minor head injury and reported that she felt like she was going to lose consciousness, Atkin said, so she was transported to the hospital by her husband in a personal vehicle.
The crash occurred just before the sun was starting to rise – a time when Atkin said drivers may not know whether or not to turn their headlights on.
“When in doubt, turn the headlights on,” Atkin said. “That contributed to the crash (for the pickup driver). At least that’s what he said.”
The St. George Fire Department also responded to the scene.
This report is based on preliminary information provided by law enforcement and may not contain the full scope of findings.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @STGnews | @SpencerRicks
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2018, all rights reserved.
I do believe Utah law says to keep using headlights 30 minutes before sunrise and 30 minutes after sunset.
Driver of the truck is still at fault. Has to yield. But if they could prove the lights weren’t on the van there could have been a citation issued for that too. Don’t know how you would prove that without incontrovertible evidence though like video of the event.
I’m still waiting for the excuse: “yes officer, I looked and I saw the car, but I went anyway because I didn’t think it was real”. 😉
I got a better one, Comments. Driver of van goes to hospital verifies if there are REAL injuries, then obtains lawyer, files suit, and subpoenas cellphone records of truck driver. How much you would wager distracted driving is do it cause. Headlights not on, yeah right. At 7am on that road, rear ending someone and blaming it on headlights insults ones intelligence. Better more possibly honest excuse would be , oops, I left my glasses at home. Rather a lie is used, to mitigate obvious fault. Some people are a gravy stain on God’s white Sunday shirt.
Well, If the driver of the truck had HIS headlights on, shouldn’t he have seen the minivan?
I’d be willing to be the driver of the minivan turned their headlights on AFTER the accident so they wouldn’t look like they are at fault. There’s no way to prove they weren’t without video evidence. It can be fairly dark at 7am where you might not fully see a car coming up the road like that.