The Staten Island Advance reports that a man died last night when "the car he was driving allegedly blew a stop sign and collided with an SUV at a Mariners Harbor intersection." Sources tell the Advance that Carl Thomas, who was pronounced dead at the hospital, was not wearing a seatbelt in his Dodge Charger. Thomas apparently went through the stop sign at Van Pelt and Heusden, turning right into a SUV, sending "both vehicles careening down rain-slicked" streets. The SUV's occupants, who had be to extricated from the vehicle, did not suffer life-threatening injuries, while Thomas, found with the seatbelt clicked in but behind him, had severe chest trauma. The authorities are doing a toxicology report on Thomas's condition.





Staten Island is the most car-centric of the boroughs. There's considerably less mass-transit available, and things like this become inevitable. While I am not a fan of SUVs, it's nice to see that in this instance the SUV wasn't the culprit. It may have actually saved the occupants this time.
Exactly, if they had been in a smaller car the Charger may have gone through them. Staten Island also has tons of hills leading to lots of blind curves. Pair that with a rain slicked road and someone travelling too fast in a veicle with posi-rear and you have this mess. He probably never even saw the stop sign.
On another note, it still amazes me that in this age of readily available information that someone would be so careless as to not wear their seatbelt. He probably had it clipped so that the car chime to nag him into putting it on wouldn't bother him.