BERLIN, MASS. (WHDH) - Berlin’s police chief is calling for drivers to put down their phones, pointing to video from a dashboard camera that shows the moment a car swerved off the road in Berlin and into a utility pole before flipping over onto its roof as a warning of what could happen.
Officers responding to the July 23 rollover say the driver was texting behind the wheel at the time of the crash.
They sustained only minor injuries, but the car rolled over and took out a telephone pole, and Ryan Hass, the following driver and owner of the camera, went off the road while avoiding the crash.
“It is just crazy. I mean, when you’re going through it you don’t necessarily process all of it,” Hass said. “You just live it like it is a dream, or like a nightmare really, and then you go through and watch it again and start to process.”
Hass said he is grateful things did not turn out worse.
“It just really shows the dangers of distracted driving,” said Berlin Police Chief Tom Galvin. “It creates not only a danger for you as the driver, but everyone else around.”
The driver was cited after the crash.
Officers say this is the third distracted driving incident in just five weeks.
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