A 42-year-old man from Palm Coast was arrested Thursday morning after an alleged reckless driving incident that nearly injured a sheriff’s deputy on Cracker Swamp Road, officials said in a news release.
For the past several weeks, both the Putnam County and St. Johns County sheriff’s offices had been receiving complaints about a silver Toyota Camry repeatedly swerving into oncoming traffic on the narrow farming road, the Putnam department said.
Due to the risk posed, deputies from both counties began monitoring the area, hoping to stop the driver before anyone got hurt.
That effort paid off—just in time.
A deputy from Putnam County was traveling east on Cracker Swamp Road when he spotted the Camry speeding toward him from the opposite direction.
At around 100 feet from impact, the Camry suddenly veered into the deputy’s lane. To avoid a head-on collision, the deputy was forced off the road and into a ditch.
Fortunately, he was not injured and gathered himself quickly enough to pursue the vehicle.
At the same time, a St. Johns County deputy had already clocked the Camry traveling 85 miles per hour in a 45 mph zone.
The driver was stopped and arrested for reckless driving, a misdemeanor. He was also issued multiple citations, including speeding and driving too fast for road conditions. He was booked into the Putnam County Jail on a $150 bond.
“Using a vehicle to play chicken will land you in jail,” the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said in the release.
