Police arrested a teenager on suspicion of drunk driving after the teen allegedly crashed his vehicle in Long Valley, NJ, an unincorporated community within Washington Township.
According to police, the 19-year-old suspect was driving a 2014 Range Rover at a high rate of speed on Schooley’s Mountain Road.
Police said that the driver lost control of the vehicle when he failed to follow a bend at Pleasant Grove Road, causing the vehicle to hit several trees and a telephone pole. The car collided with multiple road signs as well. Worse yet, the teenager and his passenger were temporarily trapped inside the car as it burned under live electrical wires.
Thankfully, both the driver and the passenger in the vehicle survived the accident. The passenger was able to make it out of the vehicle shortly after the crash. Once the fire had subsided, the local power company made sure that the wires were no longer live so that police and emergency personnel could remove the driver from the vehicle.
After the crash, the Long Valley First Aid Squad checked on the driver and the passenger and made sure that they did not have any serious injuries.
The crash caused massive delays in the area for much of the day while police rerouted traffic around the vehicle and the downed power line. Additionally, several Long Valley residents did not have power because of the accident.
Police later determined that the driver was allegedly under the influence of alcohol. As a result, he was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated, underage drinking, and refusal to submit to a breath test. He also faces several traffic violations, including reckless driving, careless driving, and failure to maintain a lane.
For more information, check out the NJ.com article entitled “Cops: Drunken Teen Driver Takes Out Pole, Is Trapped in Burning Car, Knocks Out Power for 200 in Long Valley.”