A car carrying three off-duty New Jersey police officers who had been at a Staten Island strip club hurtled the wrong way down an expressway early on Friday before colliding head-on with a tractor-trailer, killing one officer and another person in the car, the authorities said.

The other two officers were critically injured in the crash, which occurred at 4:50 a.m., tearing the roof off their black Honda sedan and crushing its front end. All three officers served in the Linden Police Department, a force of roughly 120 in a refinery city opposite Staten Island.

The driver of the tractor-trailer, a 34-year-old man, was in stable condition at Staten Island University Hospital, the police said.