Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:
A 21-year-old driver with a history of speeding may have been traveling faster than 100 mph in a 40 mph zone when he slammed into another car in Des Plaines, killing himself and three members of a close-knit local family, officials said Friday.
After the wreckage cleared, a veteran suburban police chief called the crash the worst accident he has seen in 40 years.
“I can’t remember the last time I saw a quadruple (fatal) crash. It’s just horrific, the impact,” Des Plaines Police Chief William Kushner said. “Cars are safer now than they’ve ever been – seat belts, air bags – and it didn’t save anybody.”
Those killed in the crash were identified as Arlington Heights residents Anita Crawford, 50; her husband, Kevin Crawford, 52; and their eldest daughter, Kirsten Crawford, 20.
Piotr Rog, 21, of Des Plaines, the driver of a Mercedes that investigators said was at fault in the crash, was also pronounced dead.
Des Plaines police said Rog was driving the Mercedes at a high rate of speed west in the 100 block of East Northwest Highway around 8:55 p.m. Thursday when it slammed into a Chevrolet Impala driven by Kevin Crawford. The Impala was pushed into a Toyota Highlander traveling east.
A passenger in Rog’s Mercedes remained in critical condition Friday at Lutheran General Hospital with two people in a third car treated at the scene for minor injuries.
Kushner said the Crawford family’s car was so heavily damaged in the crash that it looked like a ball of aluminum foil, with the car’s transmission found by police officers more than 50 feet from the site.
“I can tell you, I was out at the crash scene from 9:15 p.m. to 2 a.m., and I could not find the front tire of their car,” Kushner said. “There were no skid marks on the road, and you don’t get that kind of damage unless (Rog) was driving at least double the posted 40 mph speed (limit), or more than 80 mph.” Kushner said in the news conference that Rog could have been driving even faster – more than 100 mph – at the time of the accident.
In the years since 2011, Rog had been ticketed for nine separate traffic-related offenses, including at least five times for traveling 15 or more mph over the speed limit, according to Cook County records. He was twice ticketed – once in Mount Prospect and another time in Glenview – for traveling 21 to 25 mph higher than the speed limit. His most recent Cook County ticket, the Glenview offense, was in August 2015, records show.
David Druker with the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office said Rog’s license had been suspended on three different occasions between April 2013 and October 2015 for moving violations, but Druker said Rog did have a valid driver’s license at the time of the crash.
Schmidt said the couple’s other two children, his 15-year-old granddaughter, Hailee, a sophomore at Prospect High School, and his 9-year-old grandson, Christian, a fourth-grader at Windsor Elementary School in Arlington Heights, are staying with him and his wife now.
thanks Scott
