A 32-year-old male with a record of DUIs never should have been driving. His pickup truck collided with another vehicle knocking it across the median, where it collided head on with another vehicle. Five people were killed. Seven more were sent to the hospital. The Gans, Pa., man who caused the accident was not injured.He is being held on five counts of driving under the influence causing death and one count of third or subsequent offense DUI. His bond is set at $1.35 million.
This is not his first brush with the law. His West Virginia license was revoked in 2004 after the second of three drunken driving convictions. He was also facing charges from two other drunken driving incidents at the time of the crash.
That should have been enough to keep him off the road, although he managed to get a valid Pennsylvania driver's license. Shocking? Perhaps, but people with drunk driving convictions - even those with suspended licenses - still manage to get behind the wheel. This is not an isolated phenomenon.
Crashes are frequently caused by repeat offenders. Getting a handle on the exact cause of the problem is hard because the national data used by the institute only tracks drivers with drunk driving convictions within the last three years and only if they're involved in fatal wrecks.
Of the most recent statistics available, drivers with a blood alcohol level above the legal limit were involved in about one-third of all fatal accidents in 2005. Nine percent of those drivers had prior drunken driving convictions within the last three years.
Many states have laws with loopholes that allow people convicted of drunk driving to regain their licenses fairly quickly. State officials say the man got his Pennsylvania license before his West Virginia license was suspended in 2004. In theory, states are supposed to notify each other when a driver becomes licensed in a new state.
The five people killed in the crash were a family ranging in ages from 12 to 52.
http://www.williamsondailynews.com/articles/2007/07/15/news/02news.txt
