State Trooper Rear-Ends Driver

One man's car accident doesn't have anything to do with the weather or the ice. But it is unusual. John Morris and his wife were on their way to Tulsa for a doctor's appointment, when they

Friday, January 12th 2007, 7:27 am

By: News On 6

One man's car accident doesn't have anything to do with the weather or the ice. But it is unusual. John Morris and his wife were on their way to Tulsa for a doctor's appointment, when they were hit from behind, turns out, by a state trooper. But what also surprised him, as News on 6 reporter Steve Berg reports, is how he says the state responded.

It was back in February, says John Morris, when he and his wife were at a stoplight in Okmulgee.

"And all of a sudden, POW. Hit in the rear end and turned around and it was the Highway Patrol," driver John Morris said.

Morris says the trooper apologized and told him he had fallen asleep. That's also what it says in the copy of the Highway Patrol report that Morris gave us, and it says Morris was not at fault. But Morris was surprised when he called the state's Risk Management agency, basically the insurance company for the state.

"Asked them what to do, and they said, well you have to file a claim, but it will be 3 or 4 months before we can make a decision. And I said what do I do for transportation? And I said do you pay car rental? And they said, well, no," said Morris.

Rather than drive around with a bad bumper and a faulty exhaust pipe for 3 months, Morris had his own insurance pay for the fix. But he says his insurance company gave up on getting its money back from the state.

"They went through the same thing that I'm going through. Found out you couldn't do nothing. There's a tort deal involved and a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, and you can't sue them because they're not an insurance company, and we got the runaround," Morris said.

The bill for his SUV's repair was around $1,200. The state did eventually reimburse him for the $500 deductible he had to pay, so he didn't lose anything out of pocket.

Morris says it just riles him on principle.

"What do you think would have happened to me if I would've hit him and either wouldn't or couldn't pay," said Morris.

Morris says he resents that his insurance company got stuck with the bill for a state employee's mistake. His insurance agent told him his rates will "not" go up, but he says that $700 or so will have to be absorbed somehow, somewhere.