March 2 (UPI) — A Nevada Highway Patrol dashboard camera was recording when a trooper speaking to a driver was drenched by a load of beer that fell from a truck.
The highway patrol said Trooper Travis Smaka had pulled a driver over for speeding Monday near the Washington exit of Interstate 15 in Las Vegas.
“You guys have anything to drink tonight?” Trooper Travis Smaka asks the vehicle’s occupants in the dashboard camera footage.
The driver says he has not been drinking, and moments later the sound of a truck losing its load of beer can be heard.
“Just as I ask the question, I hear the sound that always gets the hairs on my neck standing up, of brakes locking up,” Smaka told KSNV-TV.
The video shows a wave of beer from shattered bottles go straight toward the trooper.
“Well, over 1,000 pounds of beer shattering and a tidal wave of beer coming at me,” Smaka said.
Smaka said the driver of the car he pulled over did not appear to be impaired and he let him go without a speeding ticket due to his car being pelted with beer bottles and cans.
Troopers said the semi is believed to have lost its load due to slamming on its brakes when cut off by another vehicle.
A similar crash on a Florida highway last year didn’t drench any troopers, but it did take the highway happy hour to the next logical level by also involving a truckload of potato chips that ended up in the roadway along with the load of Busch beer.
