Only in Oklahoma – Police Hayabusa
From the sound of it, the local police department really should have made the cop take a basic riding class.
“This is great,”Lieutenant Oliphant has said. “This is kind of like the Ferrari of motorcycles.”
“It can go as fast as 200 miles-per-hour and OHP touts it as its newest weapon to fight crime.”
Lieutenant Ward Oliphant was tracking down a speeding car on his new high-powered, ultra-fast sports motorcycle on Highway 169 Friday morning.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol says he was going less than 55 miles an hour when a pickup began to change lanes in front of him.
“He flashed his lights, hit his siren and everything else trying to get that person’s attention,” said Trooper Matt Hughart, Oklahoma Highway Patrol. “They looked on and continued on into the lane.”
Oliphant had no choice but to lay down his motorcycle causing him to slide close to 150 feet.
The motorcycle didn’t fare as well and was heavily damaged. Just last weekend, The News On 6 got an up close look at the Interceptor.
Officer’s response after the jump. It’s a good one…
Taken from a local motorcycle forum:
“A friend of mine contacted me and told me I should read what being said. I have read the post and agree with some and not with other, but this is what happen. I am north bound in the inside lane. I had white suburban come up behind me switch lanes and went around me and move back into the inside lane. I check the suv with my radar it was traveling at 83mph. I activated my lights and the suburban proceeded to yield to me and move to the middle lane, I did the same. At that point a white pickup moved over into mine lane. I blipped my siren once and the pickup moved back towards his lane. The suburban moved to the outside lane in front of the pickup. The pickup again proceed over into my lane. The traffic ahead of me was coming to a stop whether it was because of the traffic a head of them was slowing or from observing my lights, either way they were coming to a stop. I could not move to my left due to the traffic. Keep in mine the pickup was still coming over. I applied both brakes , I did not think I was slowing down enough to keep from hitting the mini van in front of me or the pickup that was coming in on me. So I grab the breaks again and threw the bike down. If you go out to the scene you will see skids left by the front and back tires. This is all happening very quickly and I am traveling at a speed of approximately 55 mph that equates to 80.63 feet per second. I did what I thought I needed to do at the time. It is really easy to read something or hear something on the radio or TV and form an opinion. But when everything is happening to you in a split second you are going to react in one way or another, not everyone is going to agree with your decision . The decision I made resulted in no one getting hurt but myself and some damage to the bike. The bike is repairable and It will be repaired at no cost to the state. I never claimed to be an expert rider. I have been riding motorcycles for many years and I have had a lot of training but this does not make me an expert. But one thing a do know that there are two kinds of riders the ones that have been down and the ones that are going to go down. And if you are a rider that has not been down, you either haven’t be riding long or extremely lucky because unfortunately it will happen, even the highest paid motorcycle racers go down.
Everyone can continue to post their opinion because everyone has one, but I hope this information will help you to make an informed opinion.”
Respectfully,
Lt. Ward Oliphant
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