License suspended for driver in Huse fatal

3/30/2011

The driver of the car that killed Warnerville beef farmer David Huse June 7, 2010 has had her license suspended for six months for failure to keep right.
Courtney Chichester, 20, of Carlisle appeared before the Department of Motor Vehicles’ Safety and Business Hearing Bureau on December 8.
According to a ruling obtained by an attorney for the Huse family, Judge William Myers found Ms. Chichester the primary cause of the accident and imposed a six-month suspension of her driver’s license.
Police reports last June said Mr. Huse, 57, died of massive trauma after the tractor he was driving on Little York Road was hit head-on by Ms. Chichester’s 2008 Chevrolet Cobalt.
The tractor flipped over backwards, police said, throwing Mr. Huse off before the tractor came to rest on top of him.
According to Judge Myers’ decision, the primary contributing factor in the accident was Ms. Chichester’s failure to keep right.
“It was the respondent’s sworn testimony…that the tractor came over into the westbound lane and caused this accident as she was reaching for the sun visor to shade her eyes because of sun glare,” Judge Myers wrote.
“I cannot credit [that] in the face of the conclusions drawn by the New York State Police in its investigation of the collision. All of the physical evidence point to [Ms. Chichester] being at fault.
The State Police Collision Report concluded that “…the sun did not present a significant source of glare to westbound traffic.”
The statements of Ms. Chichster’s passengers at the time of the accident, Judge Myers continued, conflict with her account and “are at odds with each other as to whether [passenger] Josh [France] was lighting the respondent a cigarette or she was lighting her own at the time the accident occurred…
“…an accident doesn’t occur in the instant that one reaches for the sun visor.”
Additionally, Ms. Chichester was ticketed on June 17, 2010 for not wearing the prescription lenses required by her license.