A driver identified by police as Sergei Kornev taking a police vehicle for a joyride in Moscow on Tuesday. 18+
The theft of a police car by a suspected 28-year-old drug user might have been another run-of-the-mill crime.
But the wild joyride was caught on tape.
Sergei Kornev, a resident of the Moscow region, was hospitalized in critical condition Wednesday after jumping out of the police car and landing under the wheels of an oncoming car in central Moscow, news reports said.
Kornev is accused of stealing the traffic police car around 7:30 a.m. in the Nikitskaya Vorota neighborhood in central Moscow.
According to police, he locked the doors of the Ford Focus, made an obscene gesture at the police officers outside and drove off. An officer tried to stop him by jumping on the car's hood but was thrown off.
Kornev is then seen via a dashcam mounted in the police car as he embarks on what appears to be the ride of his life
The video was released by Moscow Vesti state television.
During his brief flight, Kornev gives himself directions — "Turn right!" — and shouts unintelligibly as he manuevers the vehicle through central Moscow.
The two-kilometer ride ends on the Garden Ring Road when Kornev loses control of the car and hits a Ford Mondeo, triggering the airbag. After that, he jumps from the car at the entrance to a tunnel under Triumfalnaya Ploshchad.
Left unseen in the video is the vehicle that plowed into him.
The accident brought traffic to a standstill on the Garden Ring for about four hours, Moscow Vesti reported.
Kornev was hospitalized with a gaping head wound, and tests were being run to determine what drugs he might have taken, police said.
He faces charges of car theft and multiple traffic violations.
The traffic police officers whose Ford Focus was stolen also might be punished for leaving their car unattended.
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