On the busy roads of Chicago, Illinois, there are many vehicles. Correspondingly, there are many motor vehicle accidents every year. Often those have tragic consequences such as a recent one that resulted in a driver being arrested, incarcerated and held on $500,000 bail.
The driver, 19, identifies as a transgender woman. Court records identify the driver as a man. According to prosecutors, the driver had been both drinking wine and smoking cannabis on the day of the accident. Despite being under the influence of those substances, the driver got into a Nissan Ultima with a male friend and drove to the corner of Halsted Street and Roosevelt Road. There, they picked up a female friend, 18, who then proceeded to sit in the back seat of the vehicle.
At that point, the driver sped at high speed on Roosevelt Road, blowing multiple traffic signals. This was followed by losing control of the vehicle, hitting a median and also a cement planter. The vehicle was knocked airborne, landed on its roof and spun right in the middle of the westbound lanes.
The female friend, who had been in the middle of the backseat, was forcibly ejected from the car. This was due to the violence of the crash, which also sent a wheel shooting hard through a nearby church window. The male friend, who had been in the front seat, was lying on the ground when paramedics and police arrived at the scene. He suffered substantial injuries and was taken to the hospital.
The driver was extricated from the badly damaged vehicle and given medical attention for lacerations and abrasions, and now faces a charge of aggravated DUI resulting in death. The seriousness of the charge and the accident that led to it are what resulted in the $500,000 bail, an amount that pales in comparison to the human cost of the crash.
Source: Chicago Tribune, “Driver held on $500K bail in DUI crash that killed 1, injured other,” Deanese Williams-Harris, Sep. 13, 2017