A young New Jersey man faces charges of vehicular homicide as well as drunk driving charges in connection with a recent fatal car collision that ended with two people dying and two others being transported to a nearby hospital with serious injuries.
The accused man, who is the son of a New Jersey fire chief, was reportedly traveling too fast and ignored a stop sign immediately before he “T-boned” another car in the middle of an intersection. After the impact, two of the four people in the car that was hit were thrown from the car, and both of them died at the scene. The other two individuals were trapped in the vehicle and suffered serious injuries. Authorities eventually were able to remove the two trapped men from the vehicle and transport them to an area hospital. While the driver did sustain minor injuries, they did not appear to be either life-threatening or permanent.
Because the investigation in to this crash is ongoing, police declined to release the accused man’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) test results and also declined to say exactly how fast the man was going.
Car accidents that involve a drunk driver can be hard to understand, simply because they seem so preventable. This latest case is yet another reminder to New Jersey drivers that it is absolutely essential to the safety of others that they drive sober. A drunk driver simply does not have the good judgment or the quick reflexes necessary to drive a car safely.
In addition to serious criminal penalties, the driver of this car also faces the possibility of having to pay compensation to either the victims or their families, as the case may be. Besides the victims’ medical bills and funeral expenses, the driver also may have to compensate the victim or surviving family members for lost income, pain and suffering and other damages.
Source: NBC New York, “Alleged drunk driver charged in Maplewood, N.J. crash that killed 2, hurt 2 others,” Aug. 9, 2013
