Car vs tree (tree always wins)
At the scene of the accident that demolished his car and sent two passengers to Baystate Medical Center -- one still "critical" -- Sean M Foster admitted to police that had consumed alcohol and was "showing off" when he lost control of his vehicle in North Amherst and intersected with a tree.
You have to wonder if his lawyer will try to have his confession thrown out since he was legally drunk at the time with a Blood Alcohol Content reading of .20% (2.5 times over the legal limit).
Sean Foster, age 22, awaiting arraignment yesterday in Eastern Hampshire District Court
This is classified as Driving While Dumb.
ReplyDeleteBut for the grace of God Larry, right?
ReplyDeleteThankfully, all those local guys and girls with badges don't get tanked and drive away from Rafters anymore.
What did I say? This wasn't a .08 crash...
ReplyDelete1: It is the people with BACs above .15 who cause serious crashes -- and this perp's was .20!
2: Influence of friends -- he admitted to "showing off"....
3: If the spedo was reading 45 when it was destroyed, how fast was he going before he (presumably) locked up the brakes? And remember that spedometer reading is tied to rotation of the drive wheels.
If he locked up his brakes and was sliding when he hit the tree, his spedometer would then drop to zero because the drive wheels aren't turning. Hence the 45 reading is only the time lag between what it was reading and zero -- it didn't have time to get to zero yet. And sliding, yawing and such consumes energy which even further reduces forward speed.
Hence how fast was he going when he lost control of the car?!?!?
Where I'm from, we refer to people like him as "idiots with more money than brains" but I really wish he could be charged with something more than having a BAC above .08 -- it's people like him who are dangerous.
And alcohol alone did not cause this accident. Had he been sober and made it around that curve without mishap, he likely would have been going even faster when he went into the next curve, and gone into a tree down there at a much higher speed.
CAN 1:15 PM
ReplyDeleteActually it's kind of an unwritten rule among cops NOT to drink in the same town in which you serve (don't want to run into some nitwit you arrested the night before).
And yes I do kind of attribute the fact that I have not had a drop of alcohol in over two years to my nose being a tad more sensitive.
Thus picking up the smell coming from the car more easily than, say, YOU perhaps.
Actually it's kind of an unwritten rule among cops NOT to drink in the same town in which you serve (don't want to run into some nitwit you arrested the night before).
ReplyDeleteMembers of the UMPD would be wise to take note of this. Drinking in Rafters and The Hangar is STUPID....
What's worse is saying some of the things you have with folks like me listening....
There is no hospital in Springfield call Baystate Critical Care Hospital. It is Baystate Medical Center (BMC). It is accredited by the American College of Surgeons as a Level 1 Trauma Center, but that is an accreditation, not a place. It is the BMC Emergency Department that receives and treats these patient before they are dispersed to various other units in the hospital.
ReplyDeletePlease excuse my ignorance. I still don't understand that Blood Alch. reading -- does that mean 20% of his blood was alcohol? (Would't he be dead?)
ReplyDeleteGoogle it. All you need to know is he was 2.5 times over the legal limit. And I would not get in a car driven by someone who was at exactly the legal limit.
ReplyDeleteLevel 1 Trauma Center, but that is an accreditation, not a place.
ReplyDeleteIt is the place that has this accreditation -- and designation. Hence it IS a "place." It's where folks who need the services of a trauma center are taken.
It IS a place.
It's the regional trauma center...
"does that mean 20% of his blood was alcohol? (Would't he be dead?)"
ReplyDelete20% ETOH is 40 proof and close to the alcohol concentration of distilled spirits. (You moved the decimal point in the wrong direction.)
And he'd been dead long before that -- think:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4
0.1% = Arrested (now at 0.08%).
0.2% = Really Drunk
0.3% = Unconscious
0.4% = D E A D
Now the late Mike Grabiec did once tell me about a woman who hit a pole on North Pleasant who had a BAC over 0.3% and years back I heard about a ME State Trooper up in Aroostook County who was physically assaulted by someone with a BAC reportedly over 0.4% -- but these are outliers.
The important thing to remember here is that the really dangerous drunk drivers tend to have a BAC somewhere between 0.15% and 0.25% -- more than that and the vehicle usually isn't moving, these are the people who have driven into the ditch or remain stopped at a green light.
While there is lesser impairment at levels below 0.15%, you start getting to the point where a lot of other things are equally or more impairing. For example, using a cell phone (even hands-free)has been compared to having a 0.10% BAC.
Should we permit pregnant women to drive? By our definition of "impairment" she is impaired in a whole bunch of ways starting with physical agility in the third trimester.
And what about the loving parent (of any gender) whose attention is divided between driving and the infant in the back seat. Any parent want to claim that he/she/it hasn't had at least one "close call" under these circumstances? Or when distracted by older children?
And that's why I have a problem with an 0.09% BAC arrest -- the woman 9 months into her pregnancy likely would make just as wide a turn -- but I digress....
My understanding is the driver Sean Foster was going in excess of 60 mph. John E. Lyons, 21, of Arlington, fractured a vertebrae in his neck and has a tough road to recovery. Word is he has regained some feeling in his left side.
ReplyDeleteAnyone that thinks that the driver should be sympathized with is a fool. He knew better and an attempt to convince him to take a cab went ignored. So, instead of taking a cab or at least driving with caution he chose to put all the occupants of the car in harms reach.
It is a miracle that no one was killed and the passengers that sustained the worst injuries did not have seatbelts on.
"My understanding is the driver Sean Foster was going in excess of 60 mph"
ReplyDeleteLike I said from the get-go, twice the posted speed -- 70 in a 35.
On a wet, slick road that also potentially had wet leaves on it.
Cute...
Larry, what's the chance he actually goes to jail for this? Any?
Highly unlikely.
ReplyDelete