I might have missed it somewhere, but has it ever been established that the box was thrown by someone in the fleeing car? What was in the box? It could have been in the road for hours before the persuit. If it had been a dog, cat or deer, would the end result not have been the same? Many a driver has wrecked to avoid a small animal or debris in the roadway. Sometimes it is best (especially at high speed) to continue on a straight course and hit whatever is in the road. Seems like this is the case here. I sympathize with the officer's family, but , like all of us have done at sometime in our lives, he made a decision in a split second and it was not the right one. Things could have been much worse had another car been going in the opposite direction where he crossed the median.