SPRINGFIELD, Va. — An Arizona man is facing five charges in Fairfax County after, police say, his pickup truck slammed into the back of a marked police cruiser on Interstate 95 in the early hours of Sunday, November 8 — while the officer who had been driving it stood outside on the shoulder, in the middle of a traffic stop, with the cruiser's emergency lights fully activated. The officer, a member of the Fairfax County Police Department's Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) Squad, was not hurt, because the cruiser was unoccupied when it was hit.

The crash happened at about 4:15 a.m. on southbound I-95 near the Fairfax County Parkway in Springfield, according to the Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD). The DWI Squad officer had pulled off to the side of the highway to stop a different driver who was displaying reckless behaviour. “While the officer was speaking to the driver outside of his marked police cruiser with full emergency equipment activated, his unoccupied cruiser was struck from behind by a GMC Sierra,” the department said in its press release. No injuries were reported, and the driver from the original traffic stop was released.

The charges, and the court dates already set

The Sierra's driver was arrested and taken to the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. Fairfax County Crime, reporting the FCPD release, named him as Pedro Javier Patraca Jacome, 26, of Arizona. According to the FCPD, he was charged with driving while intoxicated (DWI), refusing to take a DWI test, driving with an open container of alcohol, failing to move over for an emergency vehicle, and obstructing justice. The charges are allegations; he is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

He has since been released from custody on bail, according to online court records cited by FFXnow. His arraignment is scheduled for November 24 in Fairfax County General District Court, and an adjudicatory hearing has been set for January 12, 2027. FFXnow reported that the DWI is a first offense for the driver, and that in Virginia the DWI, the failure-to-move-over and the obstruction charges are each Class 1 misdemeanours, which can carry up to a year in jail and a maximum fine of $2,500.

Why police are using one crash to make a wider point

“This incident serves as a reminder of the dangers impaired drivers pose to everyone on our roadways, including officers conducting traffic stops and responding to emergencies,” the FCPD said, adding that cracking down on impaired driving will remain “a year-round priority” heading into 2027. The department issued its reminder on Monday morning, November 9, the day after the arrest — a deliberate piece of public messaging built around a crash in which, by a matter of seconds and position, an officer standing at a driver's window instead of sitting in his cruiser avoided being in the vehicle that was hit.

The numbers behind the warning are in the state's own preliminary records. According to Virginia's TREDS crash data, cited by FFXnow, alcohol has played a role in 661 crashes on Fairfax County roads so far this year. Those crashes have killed 16 people and injured 446 — in one county alone, before the holiday-season driving weeks that officers consistently describe as the most dangerous of the year.

The Move Over law every I-95 driver is expected to know

Virginia's Move Over law requires a driver approaching a stationary vehicle displaying flashing emergency or hazard lights to change into a lane not adjacent to the stopped vehicle if it is safe to do so — or, if a lane change is not possible, to slow down and proceed with caution. The law was previously limited to emergency vehicles, state transportation workers and tow trucks; the General Assembly expanded it in 2023 to include any stopped vehicle with its hazard lights on. It covers law enforcement officers, fire and rescue personnel, tow truck operators, Virginia Department of Transportation personnel, other incident-response workers, and ordinary motorists stopped on the roadside.

For the Punjabi diaspora's truck drivers, I-95 is not an abstraction: it is the East Coast's main freight spine, running the length of Virginia past Springfield, Richmond and the North Carolina line, and it is driven at exactly the hours — overnight and early morning — when this crash happened. A stopped cruiser with its light bar on, a tow truck on the shoulder, a broken-down car with hazards flashing: Virginia law treats passing any of them at full speed in the adjacent lane as an offence in itself, apart from any impairment charge. This case, as charged, combines both failures at once.