Tow truck driver sentenced after fatal wreck
A tow truck driver involved in a September 2007 wreck on 29 North in Culpeper that killed a young couple and left another man critically injured will spend nearly two years behind bars. According to a press release, Culpeper County Circuit Court Judge John G. Berry sentenced Charlottesville Wrecker driver Alvin R. Thompson to 10 years in prison following his convictions on two counts of manslaughter and one count of wounding in the commission of a felony, but suspended all but 21 months.
14 comments
This is ridiculous. He should appeal. Drunk drivers don't spend this much time in jail when they kill someone.
Alvin was the best of the best....a ten year perfect record, who made an honest mistake. Just the luck (or bad luck) of the draw for everyone involved. We all make mistakes, just ususally by dumb luck we don't kill somenone. I just don't see what this sentence helps. A traffic infraction is just that. The results of the infraction are a matter of luck or lack thereof. There is an implied risk every time you get out of bed. Or not. A plane could crash on your house.
Guess Charlottesville Wrecker owner Grant Cosner was wrong this time: from Ms Stuart's 2007 Hook article
"Cosner, who believes that once all evidence is reviewed, Thompson will be acquitted of wrongdoing. ââ?¬Å?We don’t believe he ran that red light,” Cosner says, though he declines to discuss details of the case or evidence that exonerates Thompson."
Joshua Lee Burke was convicted of driving suspended in Fauquier County but that conviction was dismissed on appeal in October 2007. Was the suspension a result of an underage alocohol conviction in Culpeper county?
In any case, no seatbelts? Who had the safety attitude here? Police showed the tow truck was actually 5 MPH below the posted speed. What if Joshua had caused the death of a trucker, would a hometown judge throw him away for two years?
perhaps if these tow drivers were not such vultures.. setting people up for impounds using deceptive practices then just maybe society would have been a little easier on him.
Maybe if they were one of the companies that towed people because they like to HELP instead of shaft them through barely legal dubious and questionabale parcatices it would not have gone down this way.
Sounds like what goes around does come around after all.
It would be fair if Cosney did half the jail time. He seems like the kind of business owner who could improve society by being removed from it.
Joe,
Nope, don't even know him. And he's not a murderer. Andrew Alston stabbed firefighter Walter Sisk over a dozen times and received a similar jail time. Alston is a threat to society.
As a taxpayer, I'm not happy to be spending money confining this trucker in a secure facility for a trajic mistake. The message sent to trucker is, do everyting right, drive safely, and if you make a mistake and that mistake kills someone, we fry you.
I don't see how spending taxpayer money to mess up the life of the trucker who made an honest mistake helps anything. A civil lawsuit is the appropriate channel for this matter, but even that won't bring back the lives lost or do anything to make roads safer. Eliminating dangerous intersections has more benefit to the public in terms of taxpayer spending.
Nick Carlton, this is America. You don't have to spend a dime at any of Grant Cosner's various businesses. Unless of course the city police call him to tow your illegally parked car from somewhere.
Mr/Mrs/miss paybacks are hell, you have Charlottesville Wrecker Service confused with a few other tow companies around town. They do not circle parking lots just waiting for somebody to park illegally. They respond once called by the city police or a private land owner when a car needs to be removed.
Dave, I like Alvin and consider him to be a friend. But you know as well as I do that this isn't the first serious crash Alvin has had in a large commercial vehicle. Grant Cosner either knew it or should have known it when he hired him. It appears the court was convinced Alvin ran a red light. I still don't believe it, but if he did run a red light he has to pay the price. The judge couldn't smack him on the hand and send him home after his killing two people and critically injuring a third person for life. If you watch the news closely on a state and national level, the only people who get a free ride after killing and maiming others in car crashes are the cops.
paybacks,
I happen to find it in poor taste that you would take this tragedy as a form of "payback" towards Charlottesville Wrecker. People died in this accident. you must have a real cynical outlook on life to be able to say that these people's lives are a form of revenge for getting your car towed from Wilton Farms or wherever.
Granted they may or may not participate in what you reffered to as "deceptive practices", it doesnt amount to the value of someones life.
Dave, I'm guessing you must be related to Alvin. Can't otherwise figure out your inexplicable efforts to explain away the conduct of a now convicted murderer by smearing one of his victims.
I was involved with the tow truck industry as an insurance adjuster. They all EXPLOIT the misfortune of others. The Tow truck LOBBY is HUGE and has succesfully BOUGHT Congress to protect them through interstate commerce laws which limits localities from enacting proper consumer protection laws.
They also rarely pay proper taxes and underreport cash. They take their time clearing accidents blocking traffic because they can charge up to 2000 dollars an hour to upright a flipped vehicle.
Screw them, what comes around goes around.
and I don't think someone losing their life is "revenge" I think that it is right and just that someone should have to pay for their mistake.
Bet he won't push a yellow next time.
Dave, just curious--if you don't even know him, on what authority do you say "Alvin was the best of the best"? Do you often say that about total strangers, people you don't even know? "I read about this total stranger in the newspaper, I don't even know him, but man, he was the best of the best." That doesn't sound quite right. I sure don't do that. Are you sure you don't know him at all?
Alston got off way too easy -- you won't find too many people to argue the other side of that one. But just because Alston got off too easy doesn't make Thompson's conviction (see, I don't know him, for real, so I call him by his last name...) too harsh.
How is running a red light "an honest mistake"? It's not like he accidentally put on one brown sock and one black sock by mistake. If you're driving along and you make the decision to roll through or blow through (whatever the case may be) a red light, that was a decision. In hindsight, you might say it was a bad decision or a decision you regret, but you can't call it a mistake. A mistake would be "oh, I thought I put the wipers on but I mistakenly put the blinkers on instead." Reckless driving is a decision. Sure, we all do it to some extent, but that doesn't make it less of a decision, and we should all be aware that our decisions have consequences.
I second everything Hoolarious says on this story. I've watched semis and other commercial vehicles barrel through red lights, esp. on 29N, innumerable times. I wonder whether some of the posters here also consider it an "honest mistake" when someone driving a tanker truck full of gasoline decides to see whether he can beat that train...and ends up killing everyone in sight.
Barbara, that would clearly be the train's fault. For not stopping. Just like pedestrains think a car going 25 mph can stop on a dime when the pedestrian chooses to jog into a crosswalk. :)
To amuse yourself, trucker bashers should go to commercialtrucktrader.com and look at say, 2006 model trucks for sale. 400,000 miles is common for an odometer on a 2006 truck.
What I'm getting at, mile-for-mile, truckers are by far te safest drivers on the road. More miles in a year than the average car putz drives in 10 years. How many people go 100 years without an accident? At 10,000 miles per year thats what you would have to drive to match the safety record of a 10-year safe trucker.
All these car idiots have to do is eek their Honda Civic down the road but that's just too hard to do without crashing.