Motorcyclist crashes after trooper tries stop; US 95 southbound opened after 3 hours

A motorcyclist suffered major injuries when he crashed after a state trooper tried to pull him over on U.S. Highway 95 west of downtown Las Vegas, authorities said.

The Sunday afternoon crash shut down the southbound lanes of US 95 into the evening, said Trooper Ashlee Wellman of the Nevada State Police Highway Patrol in a text providing preliminary details of the incident.

A state trooper was patrolling southbound U.S. 95 at Valley View Blvd. at 4:43 p.m. Sunday when he saw a man riding a Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle “at a high rate of speed” in the far left lane, Wellman said.

The trooper then positioned his patrol vehicle behind the speeding motorcycle and turned on his lights and siren in an attempt to stop the driver.

The motorcycle kept going and “made an unsafe lane change across all the travel lanes to the far right lane,” Wellman wrote in the text message.

As the motorbike veered into the far right lane it hit the back of a Buick driven by a woman. The woman suffered moderate injuries, police said.

The rider was thrown from his motorcycle.

“The rider was ejected and sustained major injuries, but nonlife-threatening,” Wellman texted. He was taken to University Medical Center.

It wasn’t yet clear if the driver was impaired or not, Wellman said.

Authorities said the U.S. 95 was reopened shortly before 8 p.m.

Contact Brett Clarkson at bclarkson@reviewjournal.com or 561-324-6421. Follow @BrettClarkson_ on Twitter.