As a Baltimore automobile and trucking accident attorney, I know how mixing alcohol and motor vehicles leads to bad results. Some people might argue that drinking and driving leads to unintended consequences, but at some point we must draw the line and consider personal responsibility. Every year tens of thousands of people are unnecessarily injured or killed in alcohol-related car, truck and motorcycle collisions. I won’t call these kinds of crashes “accidents” because drinking beer, wine or hard liquor is a conscious decision.
Sadly, even with strict anti-drunken driving laws and heavy police enforcement, night after night many Maryland drivers get behind the wheel of their automobiles and drive while intoxicated. Some of them will cause a car crash. Some will be hurt as a result. Others will either injure or kill another innocent person. Those victims and their families are the direct recipients of a drinker’s negligent decision to operate that vehicle while impaired.
Not long ago, an Anne Arundel County man was critically injured during a car crash in Arnold, MD. Police claim that a variety of factors may have been to blame, including excessive speed and possibly alcohol consumption. According to news reports, the driver and two other occupants of a 2010 Cadillac were all injured in the early hours on a Sunday morning when the driver apparently lost control of the vehicle, which then hit a tree on the side of the road.
Police reports indicate that 20-year-old Dolan Emmit Watson was operating the Cadillac southbound on Old County Road near Wroxeter Avenue just after midnight. Somehow losing control of the vehicle, the car began to spin counterclockwise, according to Anne Arundel County Police. Watson then apparently overcorrected, which caused the vehicle to spin in the opposite direction. Police reports show that the vehicle smashed into the tree head-on.
News reports stated that Watson was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was listed in critical but stable condition. Andrew Augustus Gayle and Jessica Meaghan Whyland, both 19 years old, were both listed in serious but stable condition at Shock Trauma.
Man critically injured in Arnold car accident, BaltimoreSun.com, September 12, 2010