LeVar Burton Gets Rear-Ended By a Cop

LeVar Burton has had a couple of unfortunate run-ins with the police today. The first occurred when he was pulled over by a policeman for a moving violation. The second actually occurred as he was pulling over – when the cop rear-ended him.

The Reading Rainbow star, fresh off a few weekend appearances at Phoenix Comicon, was pulled over in Van Nuys, California, for failing to yield to a pedestrian on Monday. Burton complied with the officer’s signal, and began to pull over to the side of the road. For some reason, he stopped suddenly, causing the police car to rear-end him. ContactMusic reports that no serious damage was caused, merely mild damage to one corner of Burton’s car.

The Star Trek icon emerged from his vehicle (wearing a Reading Rainbow shirt – no joke) and the cops didn’t even write him a ticket for the original offense. After the incident, Burton seemed to be pretty happy about getting out of a ticket, mild cosmetic damage to his vehicle notwithstanding. Laughing with the cop afterwards, Burton reassured TMZ that he was fine, that the accident was no big deal, and was “just one of those things.” He also quipped that he doesn’t think his “glasses” (from Star Trek) “would have made a difference in this situation today.”

So if you don’t mind a little vehicular damage, it looks like being a pop-culture icon and being rear-ended by a cop is a new strategy in getting out of a ticket.