On July 22, 2008, a prosecutor in Bunnell, Florida argued that a 57-year-old tractor-trailer truck driver committed a crime when his truck plowed into the back of a Volkswagen Beetle in a highway construction zone in November 2005, killing two Flagler College students.

The commercial truck driver is charged with two counts of vehicular homicide and two counts of reckless driving resulting in bodily injury.

Prosecutors allege the truck driver did not consider distance, speed, motion or the construction zone, and that he failed to maintain a speed that would allow him to stop before hitting another vehicle.

The Volkswagen Beetle had slowed to under 35 miles-per-hour while entering the construction zone, following a flatbed tow truck. The tractor-trailer truck crashed into the vehicle while traveling between 56 and 64 miles-per-hour. An accident reconstructionist testified that the truck driver had a blatant disregard for other vehicles in the construction zone at the time of the fatal tractor-trailer truck accident.

Source: Frank Fernandez, “Prosecutor calls I-95 crash a crime,” News-Journal Online, July 23, 2008.