Accident ahead of Biden motorcade

NEW YORK (AP) - A police car working ahead of Vice President Joe Biden's motorcade was involved in a minor traffic accident Tuesday evening, but it wasn't part of the procession and the vice president was unhurt.

Three unmarked police vehicles, with their lights and sirens on, were traveling 5 to 10 minutes ahead of the motorcade on Manhattan's West Side and were checking traffic before Biden passed en route to an appearance on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," chief police spokesman Paul Browne said.

The cars were going through an intersection when the second one collided with a livery cab around 5:40 p.m. Traffic had stopped for the police, but the livery cab driver pulled out around the line of vehicles and was trying to go through the intersection, police said.

A passenger in the livery cab refused medical attention at the scene. The cab driver and two police officers were examined at a hospital and were released.

The police vehicles had been sent out as a routine patrol ahead of Biden, and the motorcade was not involved, Browne said.

Secret Service spokesman Darrin Blackford said the motorcade continued on its route to the Comedy Central channel show's studio, a few blocks from the accident site.

Biden was told about the accident after taping the show. He spoke with one of the injured officers and the officers' supervisor from his plane on the way back to Washington, D.C., his spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said.

"He was very happy to hear reports that the injuries were not serious and that all involved have already been released from the hospital," Alexander said.

In another accident involving the vice president this week, a sheriff's deputy was injured Monday in Albuquerque, N.M., when a woman drove around police vehicles blocking an intersection and collided with the deputy's car.

Biden had been in Albuquerque to speak at a campaign fundraiser for two New Mexico Democrats.

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Associated Press writer Virginia Byrne contributed to this report.