Auburn, NY – The crash involving a 2010 Toyota Camry that killed a Port Byron woman last November was due to the Toyota driver’s medical condition before the crash, not a stuck accelerator on her car, Auburn police said. Police reached that conclusion Monday after information from the Camry’s event data recorder – its “black box” – showed that the...
Auburn, NY – The crash involving a 2010 Toyota Camry that killed a Port Byron woman last November was due to the Toyota driver’s medical condition before the crash, not a stuck accelerator on her car, Auburn police said.
Police reached that conclusion Monday after information from the Camry’s event data recorder – its “black box” – showed that the Toyota’s driver, Barbara Kraushaar, 55, of Auburn, never applied the car’s brake during the five seconds before her vehicle went through a red light Nov. 27 at North Street and Arterial West, Lt. Shawn Butler said.
Her car collided with a Ford Taurus being driven by Colleen A. Trousdale, 56, of Port Byron. Trousdale died from her injuries that day at Upstate University Hospital.
Kraushaar will not be charged because she could not prevent the medical problem that affected her before the accident, Butler said.
Toyota at the time had recalled millions of cars, including Camrys, because they possibly had sticking accelerators, some of which reportedly had caused accidents.
Officials of the car maker made black box data from Kraushaar’s car available Wednesday to Auburn police, who spent the rest of the week studying it.
“What that showed us is the five seconds prior to the crash, that her vehicle was steadily increasing in speed and that there was no application of brake at all. And the accelerator was in both the off and on position, flucutating, in the last five seconds,” Butler said.
“We determined if the vehicle was in fact a stuck accelerator like others have been claiming, then it would have been on the on position all the way through the event. But it was not and there was no application of the brake,” Butler said.
It’s possible that Kraushaar was stepping on the accelerator rather than the brake, Butler said. The data show the car increasing in speed from 47.2 mph to 53.4 mph in the five seconds before impact, he said.
Kraushaar was treated for a medical ailment after the crash that could have caused confusion before the accident, Butler said. He would not say what the ailment was, citing her health privacy rights under law.
“The medical condition is something that is unpreventable. There will be no charges because it is not something that she could have prevented,” Butler said. “The lead investigator, Detective (Pat) Shea, spoke with the DA on this and they concur with our results and our end will be concluded as an accident related to health.”