“I’m guessing drugs, alcohol or fatigue.”
He is 20 years old?
How can he be fatigued?
videogaming for 20 hours straight comes to mind.
I had a twenty-year old working for me. Commuting to the site I passed him on the freeway, slowed down to wave, etc. He was just zoned, staring ahead. Then he passed me - no acknowledgement. I was going to give him the same lecture I give my kids - you can’t just stare ahead.
He ended up in front of me on the two lane road to the site. I come up to a bunch of bales of hay in the highway - traffic flaggers all over the place. I figured a truck had dumped a load of hay at the construction site.
Nope - there was my worker’s car. Covered in long grass where he went off the road, hay from where he went through the edge of the construction site, and he was parked at the side of the road. Thank God the workers were still in their safety meeting - he broke the flagger’s stick in half where it had been at the flagger’s station!
He had fallen asleep. It was then I realized he was working my job (6am to 7 pm with travel) then going directly to the fast food joint until Midnight!
I hope he learned his lesson.
Prayers for this stupid kid too, and all of those that he killed and their families.
Well...when I was 20 years old, I once stayed up for 72 hours straight, working a night shift in the military, driving in my car nonstop from Florida to New England to go home on leave, then partying all day and going out on a date that night, and driving 50 miles home at 0200.
I feel asleep at the wheel with no warning and awoke as my car was tearing through a grass median on an interstate.
I could have killed that girl in the car, other people on the road, or myself. It was stupid, and I did learn from it.
“he is 20 years old... how can he be fatigued?”
Not involving this case but you would be surprised how many teens/young adults get fatigued. Several years back, there was a single vehicle fatality at our local high school. Senior girl.. honor roll.. AP classes... fell asleep at the wheel and hit a tree ( a half a block from the high school). Why? She had been studying for four AP exams and several honor tests. No drugs, no alcohol, no texting... just a motivated and exhausted kid trying to get good grades and get into college. When I went to college, I worked 32 plus hours a week and took 12 credits AND assisted greatly at home. There were times (especially at the end of a night or during finals.. that I was so tired that I felt sick. *** Just saying that youth doesn’t trump the body’s exhaustion level.