Police have confirmed that a response car which smashed through railings on Ryde Pier, leaving 2 officers trapped in a precarious position above the sea, was ‘responding to an incident’ at the time of the collision.
The dramatic crash occurred at 10:08 this morning (Tuesday), when a marked Volvo Police vehicle – HV73 MXM – was involved in a collision with a taxi on the historic pier, as first reported by Island Echo.
The police car sustained significant front-end damage and came to rest hanging over the edge of the pier, having smashed through the iron railings. Debris was sent flying through the air.
The 2 officers inside were initially unable to leave the vehicle due to concerns over its stability, prompting a response from Hampshire & Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service. Firefighters from Ryde and Shanklin worked to secure the vehicle before the officers were able to escape through a rear door.
The male officers were uninjured.
Island Echo has been able to confirm that the Police car responded up the pier on blue lights, before returning back towards dry land just 5 minutes later. This time the vehicle did not appear to have blue lights activated. That said, a car travelling in front of the Police car pulled over to allow them past, just seconds before the smash.
Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary says that the police car was responding to an incident when the collision occurred, but has not elaborated on this.
A spokesperson for the force has said:
“The collision involved two vehicles, one of which was a police car which had been responding to an incident.
“No one has been injured.”
More than 4 hours after the smash, the vehicles are still being recovered from the pier, with specialist recovery crews from Bartletts involved in the operation.
Ryde Pier remains closed to all vehicles and pedestrians, with Wightlink’s FastCat service suspended.
UPDATE @ 15:41 – The Police car has now been recovered from its precarious position after some 5 hours.
Wightlink has confirmed that its FastCat service can now resume, with the first service to run at 16:15 from Portsmouth Harbour.
Responding to an incident? Hopefully that will be investigated. Even if so, should a police vehicle exceed the speed limit when it’s dangerous to do so & putting other pier users at risk?
Not sure why there are no comments I can see on this. Obviously bad driving from the rozzers. Going too fast for the conditions and do they really think we are going to believe they were responding to an incident in Newport?! I feel sorry for the taxi driver who has had his car and his means to make a living damaged by those who should know better.
So illegally traveled at high speed to have caused this? that’s not a 10mph crash.it’s 10 mph the whole pier bet nothing will happen to them..
Rumour has it that the Taxi driver has been charged for something… I cant find a reference to it anywhere, and so probably another made up story, but it is certainly a possibility with the way the Police act these days. Whatever the outcome, the damage to the front of the police car and damage to rear of the Taxi it seems a strange impact indeed. I understand that any rear end shunt is almost always the fault of the rear car, and charges of ‘due care and attention’ would normally follow. What are the odds of that happening here? I look forward to hearing the outcome, but suspect we may not hear the full story.