On behalf of Smiley & Smiley, LLP posted in Car Accidents on Friday, August 22, 2014.
What remained on the New York State Thruway after the crash barely resembled motor vehicles. Mangled metal, crushed glass and shattered pieces of plastic were strewn over an area where an off-duty New York City police officer going the wrong way slammed his pick-up truck into a Honda driven by a 59-year-old Airmont man.
Both men died at the scene of the violent head-on collision.
The police officer, 32 years old, was on his way to work when the 7 a.m. crash occurred in Suffern. The NYPD reportedly told a TV station that it’s doubtful that alcohol was a factor in the collision because the officer was on his way to work.
However, an attorney experienced in wrongful death cases would certainly look at a toxicology report to determine if alcohol or other drugs or medications might have played roles in the tragedy. Right now, it simply isn’t clear why the officer was going the wrong way on the Thruway.
According to the NYPD, after the officer initially entered the highway, he was moving properly with northbound traffic, but was actually headed away from work and not toward it. So he pulled over, apparently to complete a U-turn and go south. Instead, he re-entered northbound traffic while going south.
Shortly thereafter, his pick-up struck the other man’s Honda CRV head-on. The 59-year-old had in the past year become a widower after losing his wife to cancer.
The executive director of the Thruway Authority said the area is clearly marked, though there have been several wrong-way crashes over the past 18 months.
Source: 7online.com, "2 DEAD IN WRONG-WAY CRASH THAT SHUT DOWN THRUWAY IN SUFFERN," Marcus Stolis, August 13, 2014
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