Food truck driver found guilty on all counts stemming from crash that killed Ashburn mother

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Food truck driver found guilty on all counts stemming from crash that killed Ashburn mother

By Sophie Desmond, [e-mail] Mar 23, 2018 Updated 10 min ago

A Loudoun County Circuit Court jury on Friday found Tony Steven Dane guilty of involuntary manslaughter after his food truck, Dane’s Great American Hamburger, which operated out of a converted school bus, crashed into Erin Kaplan’s Audi station wagon on Sept. 8, 2017, killing her and injuring her family.

The jury also issued guilty verdicts on the other charges brought against Dane after the crash, including reckless driving due to faulty brakes, driving with out a driver’s license (second offense), operating an uninsured vehicle and failure to have the vehicle inspected. ... The jury recommended the maximum sentence of 10 years for involuntary manslaughter along with another year and a half for the other charges, plus a total of $3,500 in fines.
....

“He could have fixed this a long time ago,” prosecutor and assistant commonwealth’s attorney Eric Shamis argued during closing statements. He and his associate Ryan Perry reiterated the evidence found against Dane. Days before the accident Dane noticed that his brakes were beginning to fail, that they were “spongy,” so he attempted to fix them himself.

“Maybe he didn’t take it in because a mechanic wouldn’t let it back out of the shop,” Perry said regarding the state of the bus turned food truck, noting the dry rot and rust found in the tires, the uneven weight of the bus after it had been converted, along with the faulty brakes. Perry also noted that when Dane felt his brakes going he didn’t turn off of the road because his son and his son’s friend were also in the truck and not wearing seat belts -- because there were no seat belts. ... “It was a death trap,” Perry said. “He knew the brakes were failing, but he kept driving.”

[iscooterliberally]

1. I wish my state had mandatory yearly safety inspections for vehicles.

I lived in MA for a couple of years and they do it there. Down here in FL there are all sorts of people driving unsafe vehicles with no insurance at all. I see bald tires when I stop at lights and many vehicles lack functioning brake lights. I know it's a pain in the neck to get your vehicle inspected, but I would rather go through that once a year to avoid tragic situations like this.