INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — A man clinging to the hood of a moving SUV: It’s not something you see every day.
It happened over the weekend in Independence, but police and witnesses have provided FOX4 with more details about the wild ride.
Eyewitnesses said the man jumped onto the hood of the vehicle. They thought the woman behind the wheel was going to slow down. Instead, she took off.
Skyler Luster captured part of the crazy moment on her cellphone. You can see the footage in the video player above. She was leaving the Chick-fil-A on 39th Street near Independence Center when she saw it happen.
“I’m like this can’t be real. Like is this really happening?” she asked.
Dyani Eaton was with Luster at the time and couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“I’m staring at this guy like, ‘What is going on?'” Eaton said.
She said the woman was going 35 mph down 39th Street, headed for the highway.
“She sped up, and they got onto the freeway, and they were on 291 like that, like driving down 291 like that,” Eaton said.
Neither the hood-surfer nor driver, she said, seemed to care about the danger they were putting themselves and others in.
“Me, I would be terrified, trying to jump off the car at some point, but this guy’s just hanging there like he was a daredevil or something,” Eaton said.
Independence police said a group of drivers forced the woman to stop. That’s when the man jumped off the SUV and ran into some nearby woods.
“They basically boxed her in and wouldn’t let her go anywhere and slowed her down,” Eaton said.
While Eaton called the incident weird, she knows it could have ended tragically.
“I am glad that she was smart enough not to hurt him or worse,” she said. “I’m glad the situation turned out as best as it did.”
Independence police said they didn’t take a report for the disturbance call. Instead, it was labeled as “handled by officers.”
