South Carolina Wants Police Trucks to Be Banned From Beaches After a Woman Was Killed by One It’s Indefensible

After a 66-year-old woman was killed earlier this month, South Carolina police have cut back on the use of trucks for patrolling beaches. A local lawmaker told Fox News Digital that he will propose legislation that would make it illegal for trucks to be on the sand except in emergencies.

Police say that a veteran cop was driving a Ford Ranger on Myrtle Beach on June 13 and hit a nurse sitting on the beach around 1 p.m. by accident. Her name is Sandy Schultz-Peters.

The Post and Courier reports that the woman was hit from the front and pinned under the front passenger side tire of the truck as it pulled onto the beach from Nash Street. Many people tried to save Schultz-Peters, including the driver and two doctors who were on the beach at the time. However, she later died in a hospital.

The South Carolina Highway Patrol and the Horry County Police Department (HCPD) are both looking into what happened that killed the person. The accident has raised safety concerns about having trucks on beaches because of the blind spots in front of the sides of the vehicles.

This isn’t the first time a cop has been involved in an accident in Horry County.

In Garden City in 2020, an officer ran over a 69-year-old woman who was lying on the sand. The officer said he was going right onto a beach access and some trash cans blocked his view of the woman, who lived there, according to local news sources.

Republican State Rep. William Bailey, who used to be the public safety director for North Myrtle Beach, told Fox News Digital that patrol cars have less room to move because South Carolina beaches are busier now and that it is time for lawmakers to do something about it.

“At the end of the day, it’s indefensible to tell me that you need to have a full-size truck down there when you have people lying on towels,” Bailey adds. “We need to eliminate the full-size vehicle – the peripheral vision is terrible.”

Bailey said that he wants cops to patrol on ATVs (all-terrain vehicles) and that trucks should only be used in an emergency, with sirens going off to let people know. He said that modern ATVs can carry the same kinds of tools as trucks, and that when he was in charge of the city’s beach patrol, he tried to keep trucks off the beach as much as possible.

“This is such a sad event. Bailey said, “It’s a tragedy not only for the family who lost a loved one, but also for these officers who are down there just doing their job and have an accident that will change them forever.”

“So I believe that things will get better once public safety figures out what’s going on and knows there are safer ways to do their job…” I believe it will be good for both our neighborhood and our state parks.

Republican State Rep. Tim McGinnis told Fox News Digital that he would back such a bill if public safety officials thought it was necessary.

“I’m kind of in the investigation stage right now and this is just tragic what happened and anything we can do to prevent that and, at the same time let the police and public safety people do their job, is what I want.”

This week, the Horry County Police Department said that they would be using foot and ATV patrols more instead of trucks.

It says in part that trucks are still needed for some calls for help because of emergency equipment and the need to transport community members. The statement was released on Friday, a week after the incident.

HCPD said that its beach patrol unit works on beaches all over the county using a variety of vehicles, such as trucks, ATVs, jet skis, and boats. The type of vehicle used depends on the time of day, the type of service, and the number of people on the beach at any particular time. The police department is in charge of the area from Little River to Murrells Inlet, which is about 14 miles long.

Source: Fox News