A drunken Pennsylvania man driving the wrong way on Interstate 80 crashed into a New Jersey State Trooper just after midnight Tuesday, authorities said.
Robert Felegi, 67, was driving westbound in the eastbound lanes of I-80 through Knowlton Township around 12:23 a.m., state police said.
The trooper had their emergency lights on and sirens blaring to alert drivers of a hazard ahead, but that didn’t stop Felegi, who was behind the wheel of a pickup truck, from striking the trooper’s vehicle. The trooper suffered minor injuries, while Felegi was not hurt, officials said.
Felegi was booked in Warren County Jail on charges of assault by auto and driving under the influence, according to state police.
The accident occurred near mile post 1.4, just east of the Pennsylvania state border, cops said. It’s unclear if Felegi, a resident of Middleport, Pa., was driving home at the time of the crash. If he was, he still would have been about 90 minutes from his destination.
Wrong-way wrecks on I-80 are hardly unheard of. In October, 29-year-old Steven Barrera-Fiallos was killed after he struck two cars while driving eastbound in the westbound lanes in Elmwood Park, police said. Though Barrera-Fiallos collided with two other vehicles, the occupants of those cars survived the crash.
