A jury decided last night to convict a Ponte Vedra trucker in the fatal accident on I-95 that resulted in the deaths of two Flagler College students. Miguel Leon was convicted of causing the crash that killed the girls nearly three years ago. He was convicted of vehicular homicide and two counts of reckless driving causing serious bodily injury.
November 19, 2005, students Jessica Kaufmann, 18 and 20-year-old Lindsay Chain were riding in the back of a 2003 Volkswagen, returning to St. Augustine, Florida after their car broke down on the way to Orlando. A friend came and picked them up.
Just around 11 p.m., traffic backed up at Interstate 95 and State Road 206. Just before the Old Kings Road overpass, the tractor-trailer, driven by Leon rear-ended the Volkswagen, kept moving over the car and even collided with the tow-truck.
Vehicular homicide carries a 15 year sentence and five years for each count of reckless driving.
Some people writing into First Coast News suggest that truckers be restricted to the right lane, where they would have to travel about 45 mph.
Digger8900 writes: “ So you want to restrict trucks to the right lane? Then you would have a line of trucks driving 45 MPH nose to tail jamming the right lane from the state line to Miami. The 4-wheelers would then try to jump right in front of them to get on or off the interstate and you would have even more wrecks. We already have too many poorly considered restrictions on trucks that cause more accidents just because people are ignorant of what trucks can and can’t do. A large percentage of truck / car accidents are caused by the car driver cutting in front of a truck and jamming on the brakes. A better solution would be more education for 4-wheelers on how to drive around large commercial vehicles.”
Obviously more courtesy on the road, both ways, would do a lot. Driving is serious business, never forget that.
At Farah & Farah we see the results of accidents, no one thought would even happen to them, every day. Our condolences go out to the families.
