A man in town for the semistate cross-country meet crashed into another vehicle on State Road 46 East, which then hit a third vehicle; then he drove around the crash scene so he could get to the race, a police report said.
Travis Smith, 44, of Scottsburg, told police he left the scene of the crash at about 11:30 a.m. Oct. 21 because he knew officers would be there and he had promised his child he’d be at the race to see him compete. Police stopped Smith at State Road 46 East at the entrance to Eagle Park.
Witnesses told police that several vehicles were stopped or slowed in traffic, and Smith’s grey Pontiac came up on the line of cars and hit the rear of a vehicle driven by Hope McGuire, 17, of Underwood.
The impact pushed McGuire’s Mazda CX5 — which was carrying two passengers — into a Buick Encore driven by Laura Zaspel, 50, of Danville, Kentucky. Zaspel had one passenger.
Then the Pontiac, with heavy front-end damage and a smoking engine, left the scene, witnesses said.
Smith told officers that his GPS unit “went off” and he looked at the GPS, and when he looked back up, the car in front of him had stopped “dead.” He said after he hit the car, he pulled up beside it and pointed down the road, but did not say anything to the people in the car and left to get help from the police.
Police ran a check on Smith’s license and found that it was suspended, the police report said. They also took a blood draw after he failed field sobriety tests, the report said.
Smith was arrested at the scene on preliminary charges of operating a vehicle while intoxicated, leaving the scene of an accident and driving while suspended. He was booked into the Brown County jail and released on bond early the next morning.
When formal charges were filed Oct. 26, the prosecutor added a Level 6 felony charge of OWI after being convicted of the same offense within five years; and a misdemeanor charge of OWI while intoxicated — endangering a person.
