Interesting LONG story of a wreck......

[PeteSC]

Reconstructing the tragic intersection of two lives


By ANDREW WOLFE, Telegraph Staff
wolfea@telegraph-nh.com

Published: Sunday, Jun. 5, 2005

Ronnie Hetu lost his life.

Police reports and a New Hampshire Division of Motor Vehicles ruling state Buder failed to yield the right of way, crashed into Hetu’s motorcycle and killed him.

Police and prosecutors concluded Hetu’s death was an accident, however, and that Buder had committed no crime.

Buder, then 79, and Hetu, 21, collided in the middle of the intersection on a warm, sunny afternoon. Neither Buder nor Hetu was overtired or intoxicated. Neither had any reason to hurry, or cause to be distracted.

Hetu’s Honda CBR600 and Buder’s 1999 Oldsmobile Intrigue both were in good working order, and they weren’t speeding. Both knew the roads well.

As far as police or anyone else could tell, they just didn’t see each other coming.

Although a Nashua police investigator spoke with The Telegraph about the collision, police refused to release reports on their investigation, citing the state’s driver privacy law. The Telegraph got copies of the reports from Hetu’s family.

Buder declined to comment for this article. The lawyer who represented her during the investigation, Eric Wilson of Nashua, said on her behalf, “It was truly an unfortunate incident, and she expresses her condolences to Mr. Hetu’s family.”

Buder and her insurance company face a civil lawsuit brought by Hetu’s mother, which remains pending in Hillsborough County Superior Court. Karen Hetu and her lawyer are seeking $1 million – $18,345 for Hetu’s medical and funeral expenses and about $980,000 for his life.June 4, 2004, was a gorgeous day. The sun shone warmly, and the sky was clear.

Shortly before 2:45 p.m., Hetu was headed home. He’d gone to Pep Boys on Amherst Street to pick up some bolts he needed to mount new shocks on his 1981 Trans Am, and dropped his girlfriend off at work.

Around the same time, Buder set off from her home at 54 Forest Park Drive, near Bishop Guertin High School, to her hair salon, Attitudes on Water Street, where she had a 3 p.m. appointment, she told police.

Buder had been driving the same route to the same salon for years, police Sgt. John Fisher said. Hetu lived off one end of West Hollis Street, at 10 Keith St., and worked at the other end, at 7 Star Pizza.

At about 2:45 p.m., Buder was heading north on Walnut Street and Hetu was riding west on West Hollis Street in the right lane.

“No one was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. We tested both of them,” Fisher said. “No one was in a hurry. She was early for a beauty appointment. He was running an errand on a nice day.”

Buder came to a stop when she reached West Hollis Street, as the sign requires, both she and a witness, the late Paul LePage, told police. LePage, 78, formerly of 49 Charlotte Ave., was driving directly behind Buder in a small-sized pickup truck, police reported.

Buder told police she didn’t see Hetu’s motorcycle until the collision. LePage told police he didn’t see Buder turn her head to look.

As is often the case, there were cars parked along the southern side of West Hollis Street, obscuring the view from Walnut Street. Police can’t say for certain whether Buder stayed on the white stop line or if she rolled forward to get a better view, Fisher said.

Buder told Detective James Maloney she looked up the road and saw nothing coming. She didn’t see Hetu’s motorcycle until they collided, or just a moment before, she said.

“I stopped at the stop sign,” she told Maloney. “I looked and I started, I proceeded to go across and a motorcycle came and hit me.”

Buder had become more cautious in her old age, and she seldom drove at night, she told Maloney. If anything, she said, she was more attentive than she used to be. Buder told Maloney she didn’t believe the crash was her fault.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I can’t think of anything else I could’ve done differently.”

LePage didn’t stick around and speak with police that afternoon, but gave a statement to Detective Randy Dumais the next morning. He said he didn’t think Buder looked while crossing the road.

“It seemed to me like she didn’t look too much to the right. . . . She was looking straight ahead,” LePage told Dumais.

“I guess she didn’t see anybody coming, so she crossed,” he added later. “But I saw the motorcycle after he cleared the automobiles that were parked on the side of Hollis Street, and she didn’t stop. I don’t know why she didn’t see him. I think she could’ve seen him, but she was looking straight ahead.”

While police credit LePage with vouching for Buder’s stop, investigators weren’t sure he actually could have seen Buder’s head from his position behind her, Fisher said. Even if he could have, Fisher said it’s doubtful he would have been paying close enough attention to notice where she did or didn’t look.

“There’s no reason to recollect that,” Fisher said.

When people see a fast-moving event such as a collision, their minds often fill in gaps, trying to make sense of what has happened, especially over time, Fisher said. Police suspect that happened with LePage, Fisher said, as they know he was mistaken about some other, less significant details.

“People want to go back and make a video in their head,” Fisher said, adding later, “You take somebody’s statement the next day, and it’s not the same.”

Buder and Hetu weren’t moving all that fast when their vehicles collided, police concluded. Both Buder and LePage said she pulled out slowly into the intersection, and the evidence confirms it, Fisher said.

There were no other vehicles near Hetu, ahead or behind, Fisher said, and despite having a fast bike and room to run, Hetu wasn’t speeding. Police pegged his speed very near the posted 30 mph limit, Fisher said.

“We had him going at a minimum of 28, and the physical upper limit was 41 (mph),” Fisher said. “The minimum tends to be the more accurate,” and is more consistent with the evidence, he added.

There’s no disputing motorcycles are harder to see than cars. So are pedestrians and bicycles. Cars are less conspicuous than SUVs, and SUVs don’t stand out as well among tractor-trailers.

Buder should have seen Hetu, police concluded, but she didn’t.

“She just didn’t look long enough, hard enough,” Fisher said.

After the impact

Hetu’s Honda left a long red paint smear along the bumper of Buder’s silver Oldsmobile, dented the hood and tore off the front license plate.

The impact of the collision bruised and scraped Hetu’s lower left leg and threw him from the bike, which was knocked over sideways, Fisher said.

Police relied on the physical evidence and laws of physics to determine what happened during and after impact, Fisher said.

“This happened in a fraction of a second,” Fisher said. “The physics aren’t going to lie. . . . There have been a lot of collisions where the witness tells you one thing and you know it couldn’t have happened that way.”

Although LePage told police Hetu stayed on his motorcycle as it slid into a brick wall, for instance, police know that wasn’t so, Fisher said.

“He was quickly off the motorcycle,” Fisher said. “We think he probably didn’t have much chance to do anything once the collision occurred.”

Hetu’s legs grazed the sidewalk and he was flung chest-first against either the curb or a nearby utility pole, Fisher said. He landed on his back on the sidewalk, about 10 to 15 feet west of the intersection, according to Fisher and police reports.

“We’re not sure if he hit the curb or hit the telephone pole,” Fisher said. “He hit some blunt object that caused the injury.”

Hetu had a helmet with him, but he wasn’t wearing it. A witness, Kevin Drouin, 41, of Nashua, noticed the helmet, still rocking, in the left lane of West Hollis Street when he came upon the scene, he told police.

Hetu didn’t suffer any head injury, however, Fisher said. Hetu’s aorta, the main blood vessel attached to the left side of the heart, tore away from his heart.

“What killed him is what kills a lot of people in collisions,” Fisher said. “Your body can only sustain so much deceleration.

“That’s why we felt confident in saying the helmet wouldn’t have saved him.”

Hetu’s Honda was knocked sideways, and momentum carried it forward at an angle to his original direction of travel. The bike slid over the low curb and sidewalk, and bounced off the brick wall of the Ferman’s Fabrics store.

Buder continued forward, pulled over up the block on Walnut Street and walked back to the scene, she and LePage told police.

Buder said she looked at Hetu, felt faint and went to sit in the doorway of Ferman’s until police and medics arrived. A small crowd had gathered, and Drouin stood beside Hetu on the sidewalk and urged him to hang on, he and Buder told police.

LePage said Buder remarked, before going to sit down, “I stopped at the sign.”

Right of way

Hetu could have saved himself by avoiding the collision, but that’s harder than it sounds.

Under the best of circumstances – assuming good visibility, a clear head and no distractions – the average driver needs roughly 1.6 seconds to perceive and react to anything, Fisher said.

“Before you do anything, 1.6 seconds is going to happen,” Fisher said.

At 30 mph, a person travels 70 feet in 1.6 seconds. Police estimated Buder might have been able to see 142 feet up the road, from where she was stopped. Likewise, Hetu could have seen her car from that distance.

Of course, police noted, Hetu wouldn’t have seen the car as a threat until it started to move. It isn’t clear how much time Hetu would have had to react at that point.

“For them to miss, he would have had to do something else,” Fisher said, such as brake and then swerve around behind Buder’s car, Fisher said.

There were no skid marks or other evidence left on the roadway to say for sure, but from witness accounts, it doesn’t appear Hetu tried to evade Buder’s car. Presumably, he didn’t see her coming, either, until it was too late.

In any case, Hetu’s only obligation was self-preservation. He had the right of way, and Buder was obliged to yield, Officer Glenn Levesque wrote in the collision reconstruction report on the crash.

“Regardless of any action or inaction by Mr. Hetu,” Levesque wrote, “it is required of every operator crossing a roadway to yield the right of way. . . . Ms. Buder stopped as required at the posted stop sign, but failed to yield the right of way to Mr. Hetu.”

“Mr. Hetu was operating his vehicle in a safe manner prior to this collision,” Levesque wrote later. “The cause of this collision is Ms. Buder’s failure to yield the right of way.”

ENLARGE PHOTO
 Hetu’s mother, Karen, wipes away a tear at Saturday’s memorial service.  
No prosecution

When police believe a driver is at fault, they can and do charge people for motor vehicle accidents resulting in death or injury. In any case, police send all fatal accident investigations to the Hillsborough county attorney’s office for review.

Fisher and Assistant County Attorney Sean Sweeney both concluded it would be best not to charge Buder for Hetu’s death, they said.

Sweeney said he and other prosecutors looked over the records and mulled over the decision “a few different times.”

“Clearly she didn’t look long enough and carefully enough” before crossing the street, Sweeney said. “So then the question becomes, for me, were her actions criminal, and that is, I think, a different standard.”

To charge Buder with negligent homicide, a felony, prosecutors would need to show she was criminally negligent, that her failure to recognize a “substantial and unjustifiable risk” amounted to a “gross deviation” from normal conduct.

That law didn’t fit the facts, Sweeney said.

“Criminal negligence requires a gross deviation from conduct that a reasonable person would observe. I didn’t see that here,” he said.

Another state law, vehicular assault, doesn’t require any finding of negligence, or even intent. RSA 265:79-a states:

“Any person who, without intent, causes death or serious bodily injury . . . to another while using a vessel or propelled vehicle . . . shall be guilty of a class A misdemeanor, where such person’s unlawful operation of the propelled vehicle or vessel causes or materially contributes to the collision. Evidence that the driver violated any of the rules of the road shall be prima facie evidence that the driver caused or materially contributed to the collision.”

Prosecutors considered the vehicular assault law, too, Sweeney said, but ultimately decided Buder should not be charged for what amounted to a simple mistake.

“She stopped as she was supposed to, then she drove forward across the road. It just seems like she didn’t see the motorcycle coming,” Sweeney said. That sort of thing could happen to anyone, he noted.

“Those are not the kind of things that we are prosecuting,” he said.

Karen Hetu’s lawyer, David Nixon of Manchester, said police sometimes cut elderly drivers a break, though he couldn’t say that’s what happened in Buder’s case.

“It’s been my experience that generally the police are reluctant to bring charges when elderly people are involved when you have a simple negligence situation,” Nixon said.

“Sometimes, you see an attitude, ‘One party has been horribly damaged, why make life miserable for the other person,’ ” he said.

Fisher and Sweeney said Buder’s age and decision to give up driving didn’t factor into the decision not to charge her, however. Sweeney noted she gave up her license long before prosecutors closed the case.

“What we reviewed is whether or not there was a criminal act and whether prosecution was appropriate,” Sweeney said. “Prosecution’s not always appropriate, even where you might be able to find some statute somewhere that might fit.

“Whether or not justice will be done by prosecution, that’s the bottom line.”

Upon closing the case on March 2, Sweeney sent reports on the accident to the state Division of Motor Vehicles and asked that officials schedule an administrative hearing to consider Buder’s license to drive.

A hearing was scheduled in April, but Buder opted to waive it, and her lawyer instead submitted an agreement stating she would give up her license indefinitely, Department of Safety Hearings Administrator Curtis Duclos said.

“The agreement was that she would be voluntarily surrendering her operating privileges,” Duclos said. “I didn’t accept that agreement.”

The agreement would have allowed Buder to request her license back at any time, Duclos said. Instead, Duclos ordered her license be suspended for seven years.

His order, dated May 11, outlines the state’s conclusions about the accident. Based on his review of the reports and her decision not to contest the matter, Duclos said he found that Buder “did drive in an unlawful manner, having failed to yield to oncoming traffic, striking a motorcycle and thereby materially contributing to an accident resulting in the death of Ronald Hetu.”

“The conclusion of law is that Ms. Buder did materially contribute to an accident resulting in death,” Duclos’ ruling states.