Speeding Vehicle Found Smashed Against Tree: Hopkinton Police

The driver was extricated with apparently serious injuries, police said.

By Joseph Hosey, Patch Staff

Sep 10, 2026 10:47 AM EDT

A speeding vehicle blew by a squad car and was later found smashed against a tree, police said. (Renee Schiavone/Patch)

HOPKINTON, RI — A speeding vehicle blew by a squad car and was later found smashed against a tree, police said.

The vehicle was "operating at a very high rate of speed, overtaking another vehicle in a no-passing zone" on High Street in Ashaway shortly after 7 a.m. Thursday, the Hopkinton Police Department said in a media release.

An officer who was heading in the "opposite direction on High Street pulled over onto the shoulder of the southbound travel lane and activated his emergency lights in an attempt to slow down the vehicle," the release said, but the speeding car kept going and the officer shut off his lights "before turning around and proceeding with traffic in the same direction of the vehicle."

The officer located the vehicle "further down High Street, at final rest against a large tree in the area of Trinity Lutheran Church," according to the release.

"There was extensive damage to the vehicle," the release said, and the driver, a 20-year-old Hopkinton resident, was "conscious and alert, but with apparent serious injuries."

The driver was extricated from the vehicle by Ashaway firefighters and "received treatment from Ashaway Ambulance, before being transferred to a Life Star helicopter for transport to Rhode Island Hospital," according to the release.

The crash remains under investigation and the police asked any witnesses to detectives at 401-377-7750.