When I'm king of the world–you know it's coming, ask a Mayan–riding mowers, motorized scooters and super-slow golf carts will be the only vehicles allowed within the walls of retirement communities. Have you driven near one lately? It's like that dangerous 55 freeway connector to the 5–all the time!
My first decree comes to mind as a 75-year-old driver is being arraigned later this morning for allegedly driving drunk through a Seal Beach Leisure World intersection, crashing into a motorized scooter ridden by an 86-year-old man and killing him.
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Dale Snyder Quinn consumed alcohol before getting behind the wheel of her car around 5:40 p.m. on May 20 and driving northbound toward the intersection of St. Andrews Drive and Tam
O'Shanter Road inside the Lesiure World complex in Seal Beach, according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA).
Quinn would fail to stop at the intersection–despite three marked stop signs and two pedestrian-crossing
signs–before slamming into Robert Dillon, who was crossing
the street at a marked crosswalk on his battery-operated scooter. He was thrown from his scooter.
Paramedics later rushed Dillon to a hospital, where he died eight days later from
his injuries. When Seal Beach Police officers arrived at the accident scene, they reported finding Quinn
sitting in the driver's seat “displaying objective signs of intoxication including emitting
an odor of alcohol, slurred speech and watery eyes,” according to the OCDA.
She allegedly had Quinn a blood alcohol content level of .22 percent an hour after
the crash. Quinn is
charged with one felony count of vehicular manslaughter by lawful act
that might cause death with gross negligence while intoxicated. Conviction could make the state prison her next retirement community for 10 years. She is scheduled to be arraigned at 9 this morning in Santa Ana.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.