Lakewood Police Department
- A trainee driving instructor crashed his car into the driving school where he worked while trying to park.
- Lakewood Police in Colorado said the unnamed driver was cited for a traffic violation.
- The owner of the school told local publications the driver wasn’t yet instructing students.
A trainee driving instructor plowed his Hyundai into the front of the driving school where he worked while trying to park during his second day on the job.
In a post on X, previously known as Twitter, Lakewood Police posted a picture Wednesday of the vehicle. The image showed an SUV sitting in what was identified by local media as Community Driving School in Lakewood, Colorado.
The police department said one person suffered minor injuries in the incident, and that the unnamed driver was cited for a traffic violation.
Steve Rohman, the franchise owner of the Learn to Drive school, told CBS 11 News that the driver was in his personal vehicle and attending his second day of training, but crashed while trying to park.
He added that the driver had not yet begun to instruct and there was no student in the car with him at the time. “The safety of our employees and students is paramount,” Rohman told 11 News.
Rohman also told The Denver Gazette had “yet to instruct anything.” He added that the employee no longer worked at the school.
“As a new driver, you have to understand that driving is something where mistakes are going to be made,” Rohman told the Gazette.
The driving school and Lakewood Police Department didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment, made outside normal working hours.
Traffic incidents are on the rise in Colorado. Citing data from the Colorado Department of Transportation, The Denver Post reported that 745 people died in traffic incidents across the state last year. That amounts to a 57% increase in the past 10 years, and the deadliest year on Colorado’s roads since 1981, it reported.
In January, a bill that would require under-21s in Colorado to attend at least 36 hours of driver’s ed classes was introduced to the state legislature.