OCPD Releases Body Camera Footage Of Trailer Smashing Officer’s Motorcycle

A Sept. 8 traffic spot could have cost an Oklahoma City police officer his life. 

The officer just gotten off his motorcycle when a rogue trailer slammed into it.

"You can lose control very quickly on a trailer that's not placed properly," Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Eric Foster said.

The driver of the trailer full of fertilizer never stopped after it was cut loose. The officer was not injured and OCPD hasn't shared why the trailer came loose in the first place.

Foster said one common reason is people who speed through set up the trailer.

"Most of the time, what we see when someone is doing this is, they're in a hurry,” Foster said. “They just slap it on [thinking], ‘Oh, I'm just going a mile down the road.’ It's the same argument as 'Oh, I didn't put a seatbelt on.’”  

Trailer setup comes with a checklist. First on the list: Make sure the coupler is, you guessed it, coupled.

"You can feel underneath there, and you can feel there's a little piece of metal that grabs that ball," Foster said.

Stay chains also need to be linked between the bumper and trailer.

"It's not necessarily to keep it from crashing,” Foster said. “If the trailer comes off of the bumper, you're probably going to crash if it has a lot of weight on it. But it won't let that trailer go and hit someone else on the side of the road.”

Load placement also plays a major factor in safety.

"A lot of people do place their load towards the back, and they have this thought that if it can rest against that gate, it's safer and it isn't,” Foster said. “The weight being so far back [it] lifts up on the truck and actual drive tires of the truck, so really pull up forward and strap it down.”

If the trailer is loose, or the load isn't placed correctly, the driver will know.

"As you're driving, you will feel a pull on the back of the truck. You look in your mirror, and you'll see if swaying," Foster said.

The trailer's lights have to be hooked up to the car where it has been attached. If the load is over 3,000 pounds, the trailer also needs its own brakes. 

Anything that sticks out more than four feet also needs to have a flag tied on it.