Teenage Motorist Drove Wrong Way
By Christian Davenport and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Virginia State Police were investigating yesterday how a Fairfax County teenager came to be driving the wrong way on Interstate 66 in Arlington County, which authorities said led to an early morning head-on collision with another car that killed two women and injured three other people.
Police said that they are pursuing charges against the 17-year-old driver, whose name was not released because he is a juvenile, and that "alcohol is believed to be a factor in the crash."
The teenager, who had a 17-year-old passenger in the car, was driving a 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse west in the eastbound lanes of I-66 about 2:15 a.m. when it crashed into a 2003 Toyota Corolla near the Washington Boulevard overpass.
The driver of the Corolla, identified as Hieu T. Nguyen, 35, of Falls Church, was taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital for treatment of injuries that were not believed to be life-threatening, police said. His two female passengers, who lived in Washington, died at the hospital. Police said their names would not be released until their relatives overseas are notified. Notification could take several days, police said last night.
The teen driver and his passenger were also taken to the hospital for treatment of injuries that were not life-threatening, police said. The passenger was treated and released. The driver was still in the hospital yesterday afternoon.
Police said they have not determined how the teenager got on I-66 going the wrong way, but they think he went up an off-ramp near the crash site. They received no emergency phone calls from witnesses reporting a vehicle traveling the wrong way.
"The first call we got was about the crash," said Corinne Geller, a state police spokeswoman.
The Corolla was driving in the right-hand lane when it was struck; it then hit a Jersey barrier, Geller said.
The eastbound lanes of I-66 were closed for more than two hours and were reopened by 4:50 a.m.
Accident reconstruction crews spent hours yesterday trying to figure out where the teen entered the highway, and investigators were trying to determine what the driver and the passenger were doing in the hours leading up to the crash.
"At this point, that's not been determined," said Virginia State Police 1st Sgt. James Deford.
He said there were not a lot of other cars on the road at the time of the crash. "At 2:30 in the morning, I don't guess there is a lot of traffic going into D.C.," he said.
Staff writer Martin Weil contributed to this report.
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