A 6-year-old boy was killed and three others were injured Saturday night when their car collided with a vehicle being driven by a man police said was intoxicated.
Eric Stearn, 50, was driving west-bound on the 3500 block of the Beltline’s frontage road when he ran a stop sign and careened into a car driven by a 42-year-old woman and occupied by a 17-year-old girl and two children, a male and a female, both 6 years old, according to police,
The 6-year-old boy was ejected from the car and was pronounced dead at UW hospital just after 8 p.m.
Police said rescue workers used the jaws of life to free the 17-year-old girl from the car.
The 17-year-old girl, along with the driver and 6-year-old girl, were treated at UW hospital and released.
None of the car’s occupants were wearing seat belts.
Stearn, who was unaccompanied in his car, left the area and came to a stop nearly half a mile from the crash location, on the 4500 block of Milford Road, after his car began experiencing mechanical difficulties associated with the collision.
The Town of Madison Police arrested Stearn and charged him with homicide by operating a vehicle while intoxicated.
According to Kate Nolan, spokesperson for the Dane chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the accident is part of a statewide trend marked by an increasing number of drunk-driving fatalities.
“Wisconsin is having a deadly year. Traffic fatalities have been skyrocketing,” she said.
Locally, 2002 has seen an unusually high number of alcohol-related driving deaths, Nolan said.
“In Dane County, we normally have 32 or 33 traffic fatalities involving alcohol. This year we are at almost 60, and the year is not even over,” said Nolan, who pointed out the average annual number of drunk-driving deaths in Wisconsin is nearly double average homicide figures. “There is certainly a cultural problem that everyone thinks driving drunk is a normal thing,” she said.
Nolan said lenient courts are largely to blame.
“Our court system is failing to deter people from driving drunk,” Nolan said. “We have to pass stronger laws, and the courts have to enforce them.”
Nolan also said the incident should serve as a fresh example for why the state should crack down on apathetic seat-belt use.
“We have one of the lowest rates of seat-belt use in Wisconsin, and it’s killing people,” she said.
