Post last updated at 1:55 p.m. Saturday:
A person suffered minor injuries after a crash that uprooted a light pole in downtown Lawrence around 4:45 p.m. Friday.
“It appears the SUV was headed southbound on Vermont and failed to stop at the red light and collided with a car headed westbound,” Laura McCabe, spokesperson for the Lawrence Police Department, said via email. “The SUV then swerved and hit the light pole.”
A photo from the scene showed that the traffic light pole at the southwest corner of the intersection, near Intrust Bank at 901 Vermont St., had broken away from its base and ended up on top of the vehicle, which came to rest upright on the curb and in the right-of-way next to Vermont Street.
A family member came to take the driver of the SUV to the hospital to be checked out, and the other driver was cleared to leave the scene, McCabe said.
She said both drivers cooperated fully, and alcohol was not suspected to be a contributing factor.
In a tweet at 5:36 p.m., the Lawrence Police Department asked people to avoid the area as police, fire and city services continued to work on the crash. That work continued as of 6 p.m., McCabe said, and “crews may be on the scene a while so city workers can repair the pole.”
Later Friday evening, crews were working to install a temporary traffic light so that the intersection won’t have to function as a four-way stop throughout the weekend, McCabe said.
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Carter Gaskins/Lawrence Times
