By JAMES MITCHELL
Sunday Times Newspapers
“It’s an accident,” Southgate Public Safety Director Thomas Coombs said of a fatal two-vehicle collision that took the life of a Melvindale woman on July 8.
Investigators said Wednesday that information taken from the “black box” computers of the vehicles involved – a Dodge Stratus traveling west on Sycamore which reportedly hit a Chevrolet Blazer traveling south on Burns – did not produce sufficient evidence for criminal charges.
About 6 p.m. that day the Stratus struck the Blazer, which rolled over twice. The driver, a woman in her 30s, was pronounced dead at the site.
Coombs said the Stratus was traveling between 17 and 22 mph on impact, and the Blazer was moving at 32 mph, seven miles over the posted speed limit.
Coombs said investigators from the Downriver Crash Investigation Team submitted a warrant request to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s office, which did not opt to pursue additional charges against the Stratus driver. A citation for failure to yield was issued to that driver last week. No evidence suggests that either driver, or passengers in the Blazer, had been drinking.
Neither the woman, nor the other passengers in the Blazer who received minor injuries, appeared to have been wearing seat belts.
(James Mitchell can be reached at [email protected])