Too-young driver gets probation in fatal I-90 limousine crash
A too-young limousine driver involved in a crash that killed his passenger in March 2016 pleaded guilty Thursday to violating motor carrier safety laws.
Aaron T. Nash, 21, will spend two years on probation.
The plea was accepted by Kane County Associate Judge Linda Abrahamson.
Nash was 20 when the crash happened March 25 on the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway near Elgin, and federal regulations require interstate commercial drivers be at least 21.
Nash, of the 600 block of West O'Neil Road in Janesville, Wisconsin, was driving a 1998 Lincoln east with six passengers. The car hit a crash attenuator on a concrete barricade wall and flipped onto its roof, killing passenger Terri E. Schmidt of Monona, Wisconsin.
Nash told authorities that he was blinded by sunlight and didn't see a change in lane configuration. The crash occurred in a construction zone.
A lawsuit filed by injured passengers against Nash and Janesville-based Lyons Limousine LLC alleged that Nash had at least five driving violations, that he did not have a commercial driver's license, and that his personal driver's license had been suspended once because of failure to pay a fine.
The federal government shut down the limousine company a month later. It said the company violated federal motor carrier laws by using an underage driver to operate a commercial motor vehicle, failing to conduct background checks on drivers, failing to keep maintenance records, failing to monitor drivers' hours of service to prevent fatigued driving, not having safety and operating authority registration, and not maintaining required levels of public liability insurance.