Speed Now Focus In Corzine Accident Investigation

As I wrote earlier in the week, you have to be kidding if you think that speeding didn't play a role in the accident that seriously injured Gov. Jon Corzine and injured the other two occupants in the vehicle. The car, driven by State Trooper Robert Radsinski, was doing 91 mph just moments before the accident occurred.

As the two unmarked state police Chevrolet Suburbans zoomed north on the Garden State Parkway with their emergency lights flashing last Thursday, their high speed made it difficult for motorists to see the governor's motorcade approach and left little time for them get out of the way, traffic safety experts said.

These experts, who analyze how automobile accidents occur, said a car moving at 91 mph travels the length of a football field in just over 2 seconds. That would put other motorists traveling at lower speeds at considerable disadvantage if they changed lanes as the two SUVs approached, said David A. Elliott, a mechanical engineer and consultant from Nevada who specializes in reconstructing accidents.

To illustrate how little time a motorist changing lanes in front of the governor would have to react, Elliott said that if other cars driving on the Parkway that day were traveling an average of 70 mph, the difference between their speed and Corzine's higher speed would be akin to the governor's black SUV passing by a row of cars parked in a garage at 21 mph.

The vehicle was traveling at an unsafe speed. Where the responsibility for that lies is on the driver, and perhaps on the way that the Governor or his aides may influence the drivers to get the Governor to his destinations on time.

Meanwhile, Corzine's condition is still critical. Doctors had hoped to take Corzine off the ventilator, but the pain treatment program they devised was insufficent. The 11 broken ribs and broken sternum are hindering Corzine's efforts to breathe on his own.

Early in the day, Corzine was breathing at a rate of 14 breaths per minute, with six of those on his own, Ross said. For the first two or three days after the crash, he said, the ventilator was doing all of Corzine's breathing.

Corzine has been sedated and intubated since Thursday night, after he was critically injured in a car crash on the Garden State Parkway and flown to Cooper, the only trauma center in southern New Jersey capable of treating the most serious injuries.

The governor has had three surgeries to repair a broken femur and the 6-inch gash it opened in his left thigh. He also broke his clavicle, sternum, 11 ribs and a vertebra. He has drainage tubes in both sides of his chest and is getting food through a tube.

He has been unable to speak since the surgery because of the breathing tube in his throat and remained in critical but stable condition yesterday.

Ross was reluctant to predict how long Corzine must remain on the ventilator.