A car responsible for clearing a path for Vice President Biden’s motorcade was involved in a West Side collision that sent three people to the hospital today, sources said.
Biden, who was headed to an appearance on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” was not hurt. It was the second accident involving a Biden trip in two days.
The latest crash occurred at 5:40 p.m. at West 49th Street and Tenth Avenue.
Biden’s motorcade, which was going to make it’s way uptown to the show’s 11th Avenue studio, was about ten minutes away at the time, authorities said.
Cops had stopped traffic on Tenth to clear a path for Biden when a livery cab tried to get around it by driving up the left lane.
Meanwhile, three unmarked police cars were headed west on 49th Street. At the intersection the middle car hit the livery cab, police and federal sources said.
“They t-boned him,” said Joe Lewis, a clerk at the nearby Skyline Hotel.
The livery driver and two Intelligence Division cops in the middle car suffered neck and back injuries and were taken to Roosevelt Hospital where they were treated and released. The cab had a passenger who was treated at the scene for a minor injury and was released.
Witnesses said the passenger side door of the cab was caved in and the police car’s bumper was ripped off.
But cops were able to push the crash cars aside so that Biden was able to continue on his way to the studio to tape the show that aired at 11 p.m.
The crash was a bizarre echo of an accident in Biden’s motorcade on Monday.
The vice president was in Albuquerque, N.M. to help Democratic candidates when a woman drove around two police vehicles who were blocking an intersection for the vice president’s motorcade.
The woman struck the car of a sheriff’s deputy, who was rushed to a hospital for evaluation.