Seconds before colliding with a Naperville woman’s sedan in an East Side intersection, an Aurora police SUV accelerated to more than 15 miles over the speed limit and ran a red light, records show.
The intersection is also a railroad crossing, and the eastbound police SUV faced two sets of lights: One on the west side of the crossing, another to its east.
While traffic should obey the first set of lights, which turned red before the police SUV passed underneath them, in-squad video shows the second set of lights were still green, a situation county investigators noted as a contributing factor to the March 10 crash in the intersection of Montgomery and Normantown roads after which an Aurora police officer had to be extricated from the SUV.
Inside the police SUV, a female recruit was driving, with an older male officer in the passenger seat. On patrol, they’d been going about 50 miles per hour along a 40 mph road when, about four seconds before the crash, the accelerator pedal was depressed, according to forensic crash records from the DuPage County Sheriff’s Office and crash reports from the Aurora Police Department.
Aurora traffic investigators turned over their reports to the sheriff’s office after command staff directed further investigation to an outside agency, according to the reports, obtained through a public records request.
An east-and-west through road, Montgomery intersects with the northern terminus of Normantown, forming a T-shape. A single-track railroad line runs approximately parallel to Normantown west of the road, but extends farther north.
Each road is mostly two-lane, but approaching the intersection Montgomery has an additional lane for westbound traffic to turn left, and Normantown’s northbound lane morphs into two, one for turning each direction.
More Top Picks Best Audiophile Turntables
The dash-cam video shows the police SUV driving eastbound on Montgomery, crossing Andover Drive about 345 feet west of the railroad grade crossing as the railroad warning lights activated and the traffic signal turned yellow.
The SUV sped up, according to reports, but the westernmost signal changed to red before the SUV drove underneath it.
Meanwhile, eastbound traffic signals were still green when a Mazda 3 entered the intersection.
While the Mazda waited to turn left, its signal changed colors. By the time the car turned, the railroad grade crossing gates had begun their descent, according to reports.
As the police SUV hit 56 mph about 1.5 seconds before the crash, the accelerator pedal was fully released, according to sheriff’s reports. The SUV began braking. At about 7:47 p.m., the police SUV collided with the Mazda turning left in front of it, sending both cars spinning. City traffic cameras captured the crash.
The police SUV had slowed down to an estimated 40 mph before impact. Police said the recruit driving the squad car was not injured, but the other officer had to be extricated and transported to a hospital. He sustained a broken hip, officials said.
The 18-year-old Mazda driver, the only person in her car, said she would seek medical attention on her own, police said.
The main cause of the crash was the police SUV’s failure to yield to activated signals, DuPage investigators wrote in their report.
Contributory factors include the traffic signals’ interconnections with the railroad warning signals,investigators wrote.
The crossing signals activated when the police SUV had ample time to have stopped, investigators wrote.
However, investigators said while the SUV was traveling faster than the posted speed limit, nothing indicates excessive speed in and of itself contributed significantly to the crash.
In response to questions from the Beacon-News related to the crash and the officers involved, Aurora police spokesman Dan Ferrelli on Tuesday said the findings of the case are pending presentation to the employee review board.