Focus Turned to Women After Fatal Drunk Driving Crash Kills Eight People
Just a few weeks ago in July, a woman who was discovered to be under the influence of both alcohol and drugs caused a wrong way crash that killed right people and injured others. The woman was driving her car with her 2-year daughter and three nieces as passengers when she allegedly drove on the wrong side of the street. The woman drifted to the wrong side of the road at high speed and crashed head on into another vehicle driving in the opposite direction. She was killed along with her young daughter and her three young nieces. Three other people in the opposing vehicle, who were all men, were also killed in the crash. The woman had been driving her nieces back to their home so that they could participate in a rehearsal for a performance they would later be performing. None of the three, though, made it to the rehearsal or participated in the performance.
Investigators report that the woman was driving with a blood alcohol level of approximately .19 at the time of the crash. The legally allowed limit for driving after consuming alcohol is .08. Thus, the woman’s blood alcohol level was over twice the legal limit, causing her impaired judgment. Police say that before the woman began the trip to her nieces’ home, one of her nieces spoke with her father on the phone and reported that her aunt was having difficulty with both her vision and her speech. Her father apparently didn’t think much of the information because of the perhaps the young age of his daughter and the fact that, as the entire family claims, the woman rarely ever consumed alcohol, especially in large quantities. It seems that it did not occur to the girls’ father that alcohol might be related to his sister’s strange behavior.
Alcohol was not the only thing found in the woman’s system, however. Aside from the Vodka in her bloodstream, police also reported that there was marijuana in her system as well. It is not clear how much marijuana she used before the accident. The police also found a bottle of the Vodka which she drink in the minivan, which could leave police to assume that the woman was actually drinking more alcohol as she drove her vehicle.
Women are becoming the main focus of the transportation department in California when it comes to drunk driving because of the increasingly high numbers of women that are caught driving under the influence of alcohol. Although men have traditionally been more likely to cause drunk driving accidents in the past, those statistics have decreased over the years while the number of woman driving drunk has dramatically increased by nearly 30% in the last ten years. If you have a loved one who has been killed in a car accident, you should consider getting help from a wrongful death lawyer. San Francisco wrongful death lawyers help their clients make sure that those responsible for fatal drunk driving crashes and other types of accidents get the justice they deserve.