Three people were taken to the hospital on Tuesday after their car was side-swiped by another driver on U.S. 2 north of Troy.

Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Bryce Ford said that the first car had stopped on U.S. to make a left turn on Blubaugh Lane when the second car was approaching. The driver of the second car, which was going about 70 miles per hour, didn’t see the first one stop, Ford said, so the driver attempted to pass in the left lane, but oncoming traffic forced him back into the lane where he struck the first vehicle on its side.

“The second vehicle didn’t notice that she stopped,” Ford said on Wednesday. “So he had to swerve back into his lane and struck the side of her vehicle.”

Ford said three people in the first car were transported to Cabinet Peaks Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries.

“I think had he hit them directly they probably would have been (injured badly),” Ford said. “It was on the side, so they got lucky.”

Everyone involved in the crash was wearing seatbelts, he said, and the driver of the second car was cited with following too closely.