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State Police cruiser rear-ended on I-74

Investigators reopened westbound lanes of Interstate 74 after investigating a wreck involving a state trooper’s vehicle.
State Police squad car hit 1-21-14 (photo from Illinois State Police)
State Police cruiser rear-ended on I-74

Investigators reopened westbound lanes of Interstate 74 after investigating a wreck involving a state trooper’s vehicle.

The crash reportedly happened around 5 a.m. Tuesday, January 21, 2014, on the westbound lanes near mile marker 30, about two miles north of Woodhull.

The trooper was reportedly parked on the right shoulder as he worked an unrelated wreck involving a vehicle in the ditch.

That’s when his squad car was struck.

Illinois State Police Trooper Jason Wilson says that the squad car was struck by an orange Chevy Avalanche truck.

Police planned to close the westbound lanes of I-74 between 8 and 9:30 a.m. to reconstruct the crash scene. The road was reopened to traffic ahead of schedule, though, and all lanes were open by about 9 a.m.

Wilson said the driver of the pickup, a 49-year-old man from Galesburg, was cited for driving too fast for conditions and violating the state’s “move-over law” which requires motorists to yield a full lane of traffic to emergency vehicles on the shoulder.

Traffic was forced to exit at Woodhull and redirected west to Route 150, where motorists traveled north to IL Highway 81/Andover Road and then east to re-enter I-74.

Both the driver of the truck and the trooper were taken to the hospital.  Wilson says the trooper has been released from the hospital.

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