Evidence filed in crash that killed two Louisville teens
LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) – It was a crash on Thanksgiving Day 2010 that left two Louisville teens dead and a local father charged with two counts of reckless homicide. Now we take a look at what led prosecutors in Oldham County to file charges in the case.
The crash left a well-liked 34-year-old father and local bank vice president, Robert Patrick Kane, hospitalized.
"He had memory loss and he had internal organ damage," said Brian Butler, Kane's attorney.
That same crash also took the lives of two popular Louisville teens - Madeline Thomas, a 17-year old Seneca High student, and Adrian Hightower, a 19-year old leukemia survivor.
"He was loved and he was a fighter," Adrian's sister told us after the crash.
Discovery documents filed in the case shows Kane lost control of his northbound Trailblazer on Interstate 71 as he came up on another car in the fast lane. It states Kane tried to pass that driver on the right and when he quickly tried to merge back into the left lane he lost control of his SUV. Police say Kane's car crossed the median and hit the teens southbound car.
Witnesses have different accounts of what happened. The driver Kane was attempting to pass told police Kane was tailgating her and looked angry as he tried to pass her car. But another witness stated Kane's Trailblazer did not appear to be aggressively driving and appeared to be going the speed limit. Butler says Kane was going 78 in a 70 mile per hour zone.
The police report indicated rain had caused the road to be wet. Toxicology reports show Kane had no drugs or alcohol in his system.
"I was a prosecutor for years and years and I'm not going to say it's never happened, but it's very unusual for someone to be charged in a vehicular accident when drugs or alcohol didn't play a part," said Butler.
Butler said the fact that Kane is charged with two counts of reckless homicide should give every driver something to think about.
"Ultimately the people of Oldham County will have to decide if they believe this type of conduct is criminal and I would certainly hope they would say no," said Butler.
Kane's 5-year-old daughter wasn't hurt in the crash.
The prosecutor tells us he can't talk about the charges right now, but referenced other similar cases, like a Boone County deadly crash where a driver was criminally charged for allegedly having faulty brakes and not getting them fixed.
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"He had memory loss and he had internal organ damage," said Brian Butler, Kane's attorney. That same crash also took the lives of two popular Louisville teens - Madeline Thomas, a 17-year old Seneca High student, and Adrian Hightower, a 19-year old
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Distracted drivers are causing more Louisville car accidents ...
Car accidents in Louisville and across the country are increasingly caused by drivers using cell phones and other electronic devices. A recent study by the Governors Highway Safety Association, or GHSA, estimates that 25 percent of all car crashes in the U.S. are associated with distracted driving.
To show how the danger has increased in recent years, data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, indicates that distracted driving was associated with 10 percent of driving fatalities in 2005. By 2009, distracted driving was connected to 16 percent of all traffic fatalities.
The GHSA study looked at data from 350 prior studies that have been done since 2000. Some of the conclusions were that:
Cell phone use while driving increased the risk of a car wreck, but text messaging while driving increased the risk significantly more Distracted driving accidents ranged from minor to fatal People who use electronic devices while driving are often distracted for up to half of their time on the roadLouisville car accident attorneys have seen this discouraging type of report before. For instance, a NHTSA study on distracted driving found that for 2009 alone, distracted drivers killed around 5,500 people and injured close to another half a million.
An NHTSA spokesperson said that, "Any activities that take extended focus away from the primary task of driving are both unsafe and unwise."
The GHSA has said that bans on cell phone use while driving were effective at first at cutting about half of the cell phone calls made while driving. Since then, though, cell phone use behind the wheel has crept back up.
Source: Reuters " Cell phones, devices biggest driving distractions " Jul.
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