ST. GEORGE — A two-car traffic accident on Red Hills Parkway happened Tuesday when a passenger car struck a truck that was pulling a trailer after dropping his electronic cigarette.
At approximately 1:20 p.m., a man from Mesquite driving a Chevy Tahoe with a trailer was heading eastbound on Red Hills Parkway when his trailer was struck by a gray Hyundai Accent heading westbound on the same road, St. George Police Officer Tyrell Bangerter said.
“The Hyundai driver lost his electronic cigarette on the passenger floorboard and decided it would be a good idea to reach over and grab it,” Bangerter said.
As the Hyundai driver was reaching for the electronic cigarette, his car crossed over into oncoming traffic, Bangerter said. The driver of the Chevy saw this and swerved his truck to avoid the oncoming vehicle.
The driver of the Hyundai avoided hitting the truck, but did crash into the side of the trailer, Bangerter said. After the initial collision, the driver of the Hyundai then swerved and struck a curb on the side of the road.
The St. George Fire and Police departments responded to the scene and were forced to shut down a section of Red Hills Parkway from 2050 East to around 1800 East for about 30 minutes, Bangerter said. No injuries were reported and neither men required any medical assistance.
The Hyundai driver was cited with careless driving, Bangerter said. The Hyundai was unable to be driven from the scene and was removed by a tow truck.
This report is based on preliminary information provided by law enforcement or other emergency responders and may not contain the full scope of findings.
St. George News Reporter Devan Chavez contributed to this report.
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Distracted driver driving and crashing, happens everyday here, sometimes twice a day.
Yeah once it happened 3 times twice in a 4 day span with in 6 hours once or twice in a day or 2 ago… LOL
Well I’m off to the self check out lane.!
This is a distracted driver story, not an ecig user caused an accident… I’d venture to believe that cigarettes have caused 1 million times more accidents then an ecig has. Spilled coffee… dropped CD’s… all fall under distracted driver accidents. Sensationalistic journalism.
This smacks of sensationalism. Do you report on dropped cell phones, etc. causing accidents? Because they do, much more frequently.
Dropping a regular cigarette would have been even worse, since the driver would have HAD to have picked it up or it would have burnt his upholstery. So please, don’t be alarmist.
No fatalities. That means e-cigarattes save lives, right?
herpa derp
dumb article…
This is yet more proof that Ecig are bad. Had the driver been smoking Crack the accident would never have happened. Ecig should be banned and drunk driving should be encouraged. Bravo author on your exceptional journalism.