81-year-old wrong-way driver on I-93 kills Haverhill man and injures 4 others, police say
One person was killed and a family of four was hospitalized after Massachusetts State Police say an 81-year-old wrong-way driver caused two crashes late Saturday night on Interstate 93 in Boston.
It happened just before midnight on I-93 north before Exit 15A.
State police said Antone Carvalho of Somerset was driving a 2004 Cardillac Escalade. He got onto I-93 North at Exit 15B and was driving southbound in the northbound lanes.
Video from another driver's dashboard camera showed headlights going the wrong way on the busy road.
A short time later, police say a Honda Odyssey and Audi A4 tried to avoid Carvahlo and crashed. All four family members from the Honda were taken to a Boston-area hospital for evaluation.
Moments later, police say Carvahlo slammed head-on into a Chevy Cruze being driven by a Haverhill man in his 20s. That man was rushed to the hospital but did not survive. His name has not yet been released.
Carvahlo was also hospitalized. Massachusetts State Police said he will be issued a summons to appear in court at a later date.
The Suffolk County District Attorney told WBZ-TV that it is standard practice in a traffic case for a driver to be summonsed and not arrested when impairment is not an apparent factor.
Saturday's crash is the latest in a series of wrong-way incidents in the state. Massachusetts is working on a "massive expansion" of its wrong-way driving prevention system as it seeks to curb similar crashes.
Massachusetts State Police Trooper Kevin Trainor was killed in May while trying to stop a wrong-way driver on Route 1 in Lynnfield.
Just under a month later, a wrong-way driver crashed into a state police cruiser on Route 1 in Peabody, and was later taken into ICE custody on his way to court.
A driver who fled a traffic stop was killed in a wrong-way crash on Route 146 in Millbury on June 20. Then on Wednesday night, a wrong-way driver was killed in a fiery crash in Northboro.
MassDOT said new cameras around Massachusetts will create "detection zones" to identify drivers going the wrong way up a ramp and trigger the prevention system. The system is being implemented throughout this year and next.
