One Person Arrested, Six Injured in 8-vehicle Collision on LIE

MELVILLE, NY- ABC7NY.com reports that a chain-reaction collision led to six people suffering injuries and the driver of a minivan that became stuck under a tanker truck being arrested for driving under the influence.

The crash took place at about 10:30 p.m. on Friday, October 19, 2018, in Melville. The eastbound lanes of the traffic on the Long Island Expressway were moving slowly following an earlier incident involving a car fire. The slow traffic led to two vehicles being involved in a collision. The first Long Island car accident led to a pile-up that included the minivan and a tanker truck. The driver of the minivan failed to slow her vehicle quickly enough and skidded into the back of the tanker truck causing her minivan to become stuck beneath the tanker.

The driver of the minivan was identified as Suzanne Butler, 45, of East Meadow. Butler managed to exit her vehicle and was hospitalized for treatment of minor injuries that she sustained in the collision. The police later charged Butler with driving while intoxicated. The collision also injured five other individuals.

Chain reaction crashes create many complicated questions regarding which driver is at fault. In some cases, the rear driver may be at fault for following too closely and crashing into the back of another vehicle, which can cause that vehicle to strike a car in front of them. In an easy situation, the rear driver would have all the fault for the crash. However, it is often a combination of factors that cause a chain-reaction collision, and sometimes the fault is shared between multiple drivers who may not have been paying enough attention to the road.