Posted today on FRl. Since he was driving a ferrari and had a license and his last name was Lane. I'm assuming he was a citizen.
Driver cited 42 times prior to fatal crash
Sun-Sentinel Tribune ^ | 10-13-2005 | Angela Rozas and Joseph Sjostrom,
Posted on 10/13/2005 3:59:12 PM EDT by Cagey
Two days after his daughter and grandson were killed in a three-car collision in West Chicago, Mike Donovan grieves as he pictures the bruised 4-year-old in the hospital.
"I held him, and I talked to him. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do," he said. But along with the shock and grief, there is anger too.
One of the drivers involved in the crash, 27-year-old Matthew Lane of Wheaton, had a long history of speeding tickets and driving infractions. He had been cited 42 times in the last nine years in DuPage County, 24 times for speeding, but only had his license revoked once.
Though police have not figured out what happened in the crash, or who was to blame, Donovan wants to know why Lane was driving in the first place.
"I am really angry right now," Donovan said Wednesday, sitting in the kitchen of his Carol Stream home. "My daughter and my grandson are not just going to be another statistic. There is no way a person with 20 violations should have had a driver's license."
Donovan's daughter, Nicole Westerhoff of North Aurora, and his grandson Devon Westerhoff somehow collided with Lane and a third driver on an unlit curve on Fabyan Parkway on Monday evening. Nicole and Devon, as well as Lane, were killed. A third driver in a Ford Explorer was not seriously injured.
Driver had valid license
Police aren't sure how fast any of the drivers were going. The posted speed limit is 45 m.p.h. Lane's car, a 1995 Ferrari, split in two from the impact. It may take a week for investigators to reconstruct what happened, said Deputy Chief of Police Don Goncher.
Despite the 24 speeding tickets, Lane had a valid driver's license. Although state law requires that anyone who gets three or more moving violations in a year face suspension, the law excludes tickets in which the violator successfully completes court supervision.
Supervision, granted at the judge's discretion, means that the conviction will not go on the driver's permanent record if the driver does not violate traffic laws for a given amount of time.
Lane has only a 2002 crash for which he was not cited on his permanent driving record, according to the secretary of state's office.
The office would not disclose how many supervisions Lane received, but a check of his record in DuPage County revealed he received supervision for 18 speeding tickets, including three this year. Lane was due in court Wednesday on a speeding ticket from Addison. He pleaded guilty Sept. 30 for speeding 31 to 39 m.p.h. above the speed limit and received five months' supervision and had to serve in the Sheriff's Work Alternative Program, according to court records.
His license has only been revoked once, in 1997, according to court records, but that revocation no longer shows up on his permanent record.
Moving violations are purged from the record after 4 1/2 years, according to Beth Kaufman, spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office.
A new law signed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich on July 26, however, is intended to keep drivers like Lane from driving.
The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Lisa Dugan (D-Bradley) and state Sen. Debbie Halvorson (D-Crete), goes into effect in January. It mandates that anyone who receives two supervisions in a year for driving violations cannot receive a third supervision within a year of the first one.
Last year, 3,785 drivers received court supervision for more than three offenses, 128 drivers received court supervision more than six times, and one driver received court supervision 14 times, according to the secretary of state's office. Over the last three years, 28 drivers have received court supervision 10 or more times in a 12-month period.
Court supervision was created to give people who make one or two mistakes a second chance, Dugan said.
"It was never meant so somebody could have 8, 10, 12, 14 supervisions and still get supervision in one year's time. That's ridiculous," she said.
DuPage County State's Atty. Joseph Birkett said his office is reviewing all of Lane's cases in Traffic Court to determine if his office could have done more to prevent him from keeping his driver's license.
Birkett said his prosecutors always object to a judge granting court supervision. In some of the cases, local prosecutors, hired by the towns in which the tickets were given, prosecuted the cases.
But, Birkett conceded that the court and his personnel are not always privy to the complete driving record of the 245,000 cases that pass through DuPage County each year. That's despite the fact that the secretary of state implemented a court supervision database in 1999, which was supposed to compile all of the driving records from individual courthouses, so that law enforcement, attorneys and judges could review drivers' case histories.
Birkett said because of the volume of cases--prosecutors can handle as many as 250 traffic cases a day--his prosecutors don't always have the time to look through the records. They often instead rely on the clerk's record in the courtroom.
"Oftentimes, unless the officer has done something to give an assistant a heads-up, we may not have the complete record," he said.
Although nobody has blamed Lane in this crash, Birkett said he believed the man should not have been driving.
"There is nothing I can say that's going to bring back the victims in this case," he said. "While we don't know the circumstances of this crash, this guy should not have had a valid driver's license. We're going to get to the bottom of it."
Victim planned to go to college
Westerhoff married her high school sweetheart, Harry Westerhoff, in 2001.
Nicole Westerhoff was unemployed, but had been making plans to register at College of DuPage to learn to work in rehabilitation of disabled children.
"She said just the other day, `All I need is this little boy and I'll be fine,'" Donovan said.
Donovan said he wanted to speak out for his daughter and grandson, and wanted answers about what happened to them.
"I want to see to it that people with that kind of driving record won't ever be allowed to drive," he said. "I want to raise some hell and open people's eyes. No parent should ever go through what I'm going through."
What the hell is your point? Jerk.AWB
So what's your point? We should let in millions of illegal aliens because white people drive drunk, too? Well, to that I say, if we've got drunk drivers here already (of any race), why import more (of any race)?
Give me your location and I see if I can't find an ACLU meeting for you to attend.AWB
Rich @$$holes never have to pay for their crimes like you and me.
And your point is, because there are already American drunk drivers, we should allow in millions of illegal aliens per year?
It won't keep drivers like Lane from driving but it will place a penalty on them if they do. He will have his drivers license taken from him. Now just what penalty is that when millions of illegal aliens, who have never had a license, drive on our roads and highways?
Just what would it take for our legal system to put these people in work camps for a month. That would be a penalty that would mess with their world. One they wouldn't forget.
We owe a lot to the Elites, the newspapers and our elected leaders for the destruction of our homeland.
"We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years.”
David Rockefeller (1991)