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More Tickets Likely In I-4 Pileup

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By GRETCHEN PARKER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 1, 2008

TAMPA - The Florida Highway Patrol has ticketed nine drivers in the pileup on Interstate 4 in January, but troopers say many more citations likely will be issued as they reconstruct the chaos that unfolded in the smoke and fog.

All the tickets have been written for the more minor wrecks on the westbound side of the interstate. But it could take four to six months, the highway patrol says, to sort out who is to blame for the more serious crashes in the eastbound lanes.

Because five people died on the eastbound side, that inquiry becomes a homicide investigation and undergoes several layers of scrutiny, said Capt. Cindy Williams, the patrol's highest ranking officer in Polk County, where the crashes happened Jan. 9.

If investigators can pull out crashes separate from the pileup and deem them nonfatal, they can issue those tickets sooner, she said. They can't speculate on what drivers will be cited or for what.

So far all the tickets have been careless driving citations. Troopers determined those drivers collided with a vehicle in front of them. Once they get their tickets, drivers have 30 days to contest them. Each fine issued so far, for careless driving, is $121.50. The citations also carry a penalty of four points on driving records.

Troopers say smoke from an out-of-control prescribed burn made driving more difficult in the early morning hours that day, but they say drivers should have slowed down to prevent slamming into one another. Several drivers say they did slow but then hit a whiteout of smoke and fog.

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