Police bodycam shows what it's like to be a cop who's hit by a car

Police bodycam videos have been eye-opening, allowing us to witness the good and the bad of law enforcement. The POV nature of the cams lets us walk in a cop's shoes. In this case, we get to see, in a small sense, what it's like to be hit by a car.

Fair warning — this is difficult to watch.

Atlanta police Officer Steven Randerson is working a post-rush-hour morning accident on the shoulder of I-75. At first, the traffic looks light in the video. But the officer turns his back to oncoming traffic — and is struck before he can make his way to a safer spot ahead of the police vehicles. The entire operation is bordered on one side by a concrete wall.  

"The oncoming vehicle was traveling too fast for the wet conditions and lost control as it approached the area of the accident," the Atlanta Police Department wrote. "The driver who rammed into Randerson was cited for going too fast for conditions."

Randerson, a nine-year veteran of the Atlanta PD, is still on medical leave two weeks after being struck and seriously injured. The crash happened Oct. 6, but the bodycam video was not made public until this week.

"We remind motorists of Georgia’s Move Over Law, which was put in place to avoid exactly this type of thing from happening. This law states that drivers must move over one lane when emergency vehicles are stopped on the side of the road," APD wrote.

Most states these days have Move Over laws, requiring motorists to give police, fire crews, tow truck drivers, utility crews and the like a lane of space. If you can't move over, then you're required to slow to a speed that would allow you to safely stop. Anyone who drives a car should know this — the laws have been on the books for years at this point. Yet police say there is an awareness problem. Here at Autoblog, we see motorists all the time who do not move over, do not slow down, who do nothing to give first responders a margin of safety. (Really, you should make space for any vehicle on the shoulder, official or civilian.) And we see drivers going too fast in rain, as was the case here.

After seeing this video, can we all do better? Please move over.