What was taconic crash

That was how residents of Floral Park described news of a baby on the way for Jackie and Still tortured by the deaths of her three young daughters in the Taconic State Parkway crash, a Floral Park woman Nearly two years after the notorious Taconic State Parkway crash, a documentary and a book confront the lingering question: Why An investigation paid for by Diane Schuler's family turned up "no evidence" to contradict findings that she was drunk and high at the time of the crash.

All of them, he said, involved alcohol. A crash like that shines a spotlight on all future wrong-way crashes and arrests, the investigator said. Becerra, who grew up in Westchester, said he could not say whether the county's roads were more or less susceptible to wrong-way drivers. But he said the Taconic is well-marked.

Thomas Gleason, commissioner of the Westchester County Department of Public Safety, said he doesn't think the county's roads are more susceptible to wrong-way drivers. In the past 11 months, there have been at least a half-dozen wrong-way incidents on local roadways —with no fatalities. The incidents range from a New York City woman who drove the wrong way while drunk on the Sprain in Greenburgh in April to a White Plains man with a blood-alcohol level at 0.

Most often, people are driving impaired late at night, sharing the road with fewer cars, he said. And police have more help these days. Talk of wrong-way drivers takes Gleason back to his first training officer who taught the new cop a valuable lesson. Gleason said within a few years, he survived two "scary moments," when wrong-way drunks passed him in the left lane on the Hutch and the Cross-County.

A special investigation from the National Transportation Safety Board looked at wrong-way collisions. There's a simple reason for that: "The vast majority of wrong-way collisions" are head-on, the NTSB noted.

Still, the number of deaths attributed annually to wrong-way crashes has fluctuated little; it is typically between and The report bore out what Becerra and Gleason have found in their years on their respective police forces: Wrong-way crashes more often than not involve alcohol. The NTSB report concluded that "driving while impaired by alcohol is the primary cause of wrong-way driving collisions. Of the 1, wrong-way fatal crashes in the six years covered by the report, of them — 60 percent — "had indications of alcohol involvement.

Impulsive spending can be indicative of an underlying mental health issue. One mental health professional evaluating the case explained:. Michael Bastardi Jr. Longtime friends and family members claimed they rarely saw Schuler drink. Although autopsy reports suggested no signs of long-term alcohol abuse, many still speculate Schuler drank in secret. In , NY officials ruled the crash as a homicide but never filed criminal charges because authorities considered the deceased Schuler as the only responsible party.

After the crash, Michael Bastardi Jr. According to Joan, Schuler considered marijuana medicinal and used it to ease anxiety. Reportedly, Schuler also preferred liquor. Despite this account, Daniel described his wife as the opposite :. She did not drink. She was not an alcoholic. I never saw her drunk since the day I met her. Schuler, who weighed pounds according to autopsy reports, gained weight over the years preceding the crash.

In the lawsuit, Daniel maintained the state was responsible for keeping the roads safe and had poorly designed the highway with inadequate signs. As of July , the courts confidentially settled the total of four lawsuits - including the Bastardi suit against Daniel Schuler and Warren Hance.