[Title to be sung to the tune of “How do you solve a problem like Maria?“]
OK, so the whole “going the speed limit” and “wearing my seatbelt” thing turned out not to be precisely, you know, true. Nor did the black ice explanation, which the State Police have backed way off. On the other hand, the black box data have turned up nothing inconsistent with his basic story of leaving his house early and driving for about 40 minutes before the accident; there’s no evidence he was drinking (and there’s evidence to the contrary in the form of a field sobriety test); and it’s not implausible that someone who has a bad night of sleep and gets up at 4:45 might then fall asleep at the wheel. And, thankfully, nobody was injured in the horrific wreck.
The Herald reports that Murray isn’t committing to releasing his cell phone records. That seems like a bad call. He’s already gotten himself in a lot of trouble not because the incident itself exactly, but because he stalled letting the truth out about it for so long. Why drag that process out further? Just release the records and let them confirm what Murray says, namely, that he wasn’t on the phone or texting. (If the records show something else, that’s a different problem.)
So what to make of all this? Should he resign, as BMGer Farnkoff suggests? Or, per my esteemed co-editor Charley, is this no big deal absent some evidence of serious wrongdoing? I guess I’m somewhere in the middle. Murray (and the State Police) seriously screwed up by initially being so surly about releasing the car’s black box data. And if Murray really wasn’t sure what happened, he shouldn’t have been making up tales about the speed limit and his seat belt. It doesn’t strike me as a firing (or resigning, as the case may be) offense, given the lack of any injuries or evidence of chemical impairment. But this incident and his bungled response to it will not be so easy to put behind him, and will surely come back if (as everyone expects) he runs for Governor in 2014.
liveandletlive says
I have always liked and trusted Tim Murray. This seems so out of character for him that you almost have to wonder if he is caught up in the sinister underground mafia-esque government controlling society that we all know exists but don’t dare talk about for fear of being labeled a lunatic. I’m not kidding either. I need some truth here. Why in the heck won’t he tell us exactly what happened.
sabutai says
The guy got into an accident while obeying every thinkable law. And still the jackals and wannabe jackals bay for more intrusion and a yearning desire to manufacture a scandal.
If you want to reserve politics for the crazy (who don’t mind this ridiculousness) and the rich (who can buy off anyone who can cause it), this is the way to do it.
stomv says
According to the article linked above, Mr. Murray was:
1. Speeding (75 is 10 over)
2. Not wearing his seat belt
3. Driving recklessly (too tired to drive? still driving? reckless).
This isn’t to say that the offenses above aren’t forgivable — they are. On an interstate the first two are instances of bad judgement unlikely to have any negative effect on others. The third is bad judgement which could harm others, but it’s not binary [you are speeding or you aren’t; you are wearing a seat belt or you aren’t; being *too* sleepy to drive is much harder to know for sure].
Furthermore, he seems to have had trouble with the truth in claiming that he was wearing his seat belt when he wasn’t. Bad form to be sure.
I commend the journalists for going after the black box. As a result, we’ve learned more about Mr. Murray’s accident and, in fact, his character.
I don’t think that this is a major scandal. His biggest error in my opinion was lying about wearing his seat belt. Had that discrepancy not existed, the whole thing would be really really minor from a public perspective. The seat belt lie though — totally avoidable, and suggests that he’s willing to lie when he [falsely] believes he can get away with it. Bad judgment. It happens. It has no tangible impact on my opinion of his fitness for office, Lt Gov or any other office in the future. Still, it’s not nothing, he most certainly was not “obeying every thinkable law,” and he was dishonest in his story about the accident, if only in some portions.
davesoko says
Murray made some pretty lousy driving decisions which resulted in this accident. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and hopefully the LG and others will take it to heart to obey speed limits, wear a seatbelt, and pull over and stop if you feel yourself drifting to sleep.
As for the dishonestly part, it’s possible that Murray lied, which would be pretty slimy and politician-y of him if true. I think it’s also at least possible that he described the accident how he remembered it, keeping in mind that he was a) allegedly asleep when the crash took place, and b) that the wreck involved a vehicle traveling over 100mph flipping twice and burning with Murray (while not wearing a seatbelt) inside.
I’ve never personally (thank god) been involved in a car wreck that serious, but I could see how going through that experience could leave one a little disoriented about what happened afterwards.
centralmassdad says
I certainly didn’t flip the car, but totalled it. I have almost no recollection at all of what happened except what I have pieced together from sources other than me.
hlpeary says
The musical thing is beneath you, David…sure surprised that you did not figure out that a grassy knoll is sometimes just a grassy knoll…the media went nuts trying to find the sinister in the mundane…the political insider rumor factory was churning overtime, as well (spurred by 2014 Dem. gov. wannabees)…and here we finally are faced with the truth according to a black box that the State Police held back not Murray: he fell asleep at the wheel on a cold early morning driving over the speed limit on an empty highway and crunched the car. He was not hurt (thank God)…but, what a BORING STORY! A dullard! Tim how can you be so boring!? You work hard, you love your wife and daughters, you put in too many work hours, you travel to every corner of the state week in and week out, you actually get things done for people…what’s wrong with you? ANSWER: NOTHING is wrong with you. But, I have some serious doubts about those that are blowing this so far off the charts.
Ryan says
He may seriously want to think about having a staffer around to share some of the driving duties if he’s going to be driving and working that heavily. That is something ‘wrong,’ but something he’s lucky enough to be able to fix now.
He really is exceptionally lucky he die or kill someone else. Crashing at 100 miles an hour, while asleep at the wheel and not wearing a seat belt to boot, is pretty much a miracle.
Ryan says
Being sleep deprived can be every bit as dangerous as driving drunk. If you feel really, really tired — tired enough that you knew if you were to sit down on the couch you’d probably crash — then you shouldn’t be driving anymore than if you just gulped a bunch of shots.
jconway says
My dad used to work the night shift so he could stay at home with me and oftentimes drove at this time at night and occasionally almost got into accidents, not just because of sleepiness but also because conditions can be quite dreadful, particularly at night, particularly at this time of year. So I do not think the driving itself is a bad mark against his character, nor the seat belt or speeding since again, most people choose to speed and choose not to wear seat belts. And in some places 55 is a stupid speed limit (like all the highways claimed to be ‘city roads’ in Chicago).
That said, his biggest mistake was lying about it and possibly getting the State PD to cover it up. That to me, even if isolated to this incident, might convince people he has something else to hide and is willing to abuse his position to escape punishment, those are questions that must be honestly asked and addressed and hopefully Murray can just come out and say he made a mistake and do his best to avoid it in the future. At least that. Calls to resign are premature but he is definitely a weakened candidate now the longer he allows this to go on without a definitive press conference to clear the air. And I say this as a noted and public fan ever since the primary when he ran for LG.
Ryan says
(in which we have the lowest seat belt rates in the country) a majority of people DO wear seat belts, it’s important that you be corrected on that.
Furthermore, that a lot of people don’t is no excuse. One of the big reasons why we have high rates of accidents resulting in deaths in this state is because of people not wearing seat belts. If 90% of our state wore them instead of the ~55-60% it was last time I saw data, it would save massive amounts of lives every year.
There’s a big difference between driving late at night and driving when you’re excessively tired, especially so tired that there’s a real risk of falling asleep at the wheel. I don’t care that your dad did it, that doesn’t excuse it. This isn’t an ‘aw shucks,’ kind of thing. People used to feel the same way about drinking and driving 30-40 years ago. It took a long time for our society to collectively come to understand how bad it really was and make sure everyone knew it was unacceptable behavior. I don’t want to DIE because some asshole is driving when he should pull over and take a nap.
To me, there is no greater mistake here than not wearing a seat belt and driving under risky conditions. Lying about some scandal or story in the papers in politics usually can’t get someone dead, but recklessly driving can. Easily. That means the reckless driving — including not wearing a seat belt — is inherently the more disturbing part of the story.
I wouldn’t ask the LG to resign over this, but I think it’s exceptionally important to make clear just how dangerous what he did was. Crashing into something at a hundred miles an hour is going to kill most people, and doing it without a seat belt on turns this whole thing into a miracle.
mike-from-norwell says
Ignoring the political ramifications, there is just way too much stuff that doesn’t add up here. Murray (supposedly) hadn’t been up all night – rather his story was that he woke up early to get coffee and a newspaper and “to inspect storm damage” (at 4:30 am in the middle of an area-wide blackout).
Don’t want to consider this as a science project for anyone to replicate, but try driving your car off the road into a ledge at 100 mph without a seat belt and see if you come out with just some “scrapes and bruises”, air bag or no. Think PJ O’Rourke had an article in the old National Lampoon how one can possibly do this and survive.
Remember again this happened after the big 10/29 storm and the area-wide power outage. 75 mph pre-dawn in those types of conditions doesn’t make a ton of sense. Reminds me of when Mo Vaughn rolled his pickup truck coming back from the Foxy Lady way back when. He hit a car with no hazard lights going that was parked in the exit lane to Neponset Street off 95 if I recall. However, I was living in Westwood at the time and remember being up with my infant daughter that night – weather was horrendous. Vaughn was supposedly going 70 (in a 65 zone) which is no big deal, but in torrential rain and high wind most of us would have felt terrified doing more than 50 given conditions.
Think this one is just getting started.
merrimackguy says
His story doesn’t add up AT ALL. It also appears the State Police are not doing their job.
Inspecting storm damage
>on the interstate at high rate of speed?
>in the dark?
>and why? Is he a DPW worker? Can’t people give him reports?
Getting coffee and the paper?
> on the interstate?
> miles from home?
Falling asleep at the wheel
>at a high rate of speed?
>an hour after he woke up?
I’m not even getting into the rest of it. At the bottom of this is something Murray doesn’t want us to know.
hlpeary says
was just a grassy knoll. The story has been told. You just want something more reality TV-ish…for whatever reason.
Christopher says
It was several weeks ago and honestly I had forgotten this had happened until posts appeared here in the last couple of days. What I do recall is news accounts at the time saying the Lt. Gov. bent over backwards to be cooperative and volunteered to (practically insisted upon) taking a field sobriety test to publicly rule that out as a factor. I also recall state police backing up the notion that he was cooperative. If the worst we have on him is going too fast while too tired in less than optimum conditions, then chalk it up to stupid mistake that he is neither the first nor last to make. I’m mostly glad that nobody including the LG got hurt.
Jasiu says
The Herald requested and obtained the black box data from Murray’s vehicle. The State Police in turned fined Murray given what that data contained.
nopolitician says
That seems to set a horrible precedent – giving a ticket on black box data? Can the police get this data out of a car they stop for speeding? Is this in the future?
They seem to have issued him a ticket based on the 100mph reading even though they noted that he probably fell asleep at the wheel. That also seems like bad precedent. If his car spun around in the accident, should they give him a ticket for “wrong way driving” too?
Where are all the civil libertarians?
David says
I’d rather get a speeding ticket based on info in my car’s computer than based on some crappy readout on a radar gun.
As for his getting a pass on speeding because of falling asleep … it doesn’t work that way. Speeding is a “strict liability” violation. Doesn’t matter why you did it, or if you knew you were doing it. The point is you did it.
sabutai says
I was wondering the same myself. I realize lots of folks are eager to find outrage and victims, but this whole mess is sorry. Just odd to see the Herald and BMG singing from the same choirbook.
David says
is that, after a long delay, the State Police finally released the car’s black box data, which is what showed the truth about how fast Murray was actually going and that he likely fell asleep. Part of why the staties delayed so long is that Murray didn’t initially put any pressure on them to release the data. That was a mistake – he should have been calling for its release immediately.
Mark L. Bail says
Tim Murray and was hoping that he would turn out to be our next governor. I’m still hoping that he works out of this mess.
This is the second weird thing he’s been involved with. The other was his conversations with the executive director of the Chelsea Housing Authority. It won’t be hard for the GOP to paint him as another political hack, even if it’s not deserved.
Peter Porcupine says
…and so on.
FWIW, I think he WAS speeding @ 70 mph – which ALL of us have done on deserted highways at that kind of hour – and did begin to doze. When he veered on the road and snapped awake, he hit the gas instead of the brake, which is why he accelerated from 70 mph cruising to over 100 mph at impact a short while later. That would explain why he thought he hit black ice and suddenly accelerated.
He should have publicly insisted the Staties release the data immediately. I’m betting he panicked about not wearing the seat belt, and hoped it would go away. I do NOT think he was intoxicated.
But – nobody will let this go since he was caught in several outright and public lies, so the ‘how come’ of his midnight ride will be the next subject of investigation.
johnk says
didn’t think so, what use actual facts.
Peter Porcupine says
I refer you to David’s words at the beginning of his post –
I really didn’t see a need to re-post his link; you can see it when you read the post.
johnk says
off with his head!
These LIES, LIES I TELL YOU, LIES!!!!! Not worthy of a FP here on in a newspaper.
Instead of this blind obsession, maybe think a little about the person who just been in a wreak, if I usually wear a seat bent, I would answer the same way, you think he had a clear recollection of what the hell just happened. If you are diving around the speed limit you answer would have been the same. I’m sorry it’s just stupid on so many levels.
hesterprynne says
turns the black box report into an extremely detailed narrative. Link here.
johnk says
I was involved in an accident decades ago, middle of the afternoon on 128, a car side swiped me and I went and did a 360 into a ditch, no guard rail, grass ditch. No injuries luckily. After I got my wits about me, I heard the engine revving when I notice I had the accelerator pinned to the ground. Both of my feet were locked, one on the brake and the other on the accelerator. Probably what happened to Murray.
It’s obvious that he wasn’t going 108 on the highway, but instead 75.
Is it possible to impeach him? Let’s do this!!!
This whole thing is baloney.
socialworker says
It is not what happened. It is that no truth was forthcoming. If he fell asleep and reached 100 mph, He did not have his seat belt on, and all of this was hidden and then the media had to fight to get the black box information. That is not okay with me and I voted for him and worked for his election and re-election. Whatever happened to telling the truth and saying you were in the wrong. Take some responsibility for your actions.
He should be happy he is not dead. he should be making public service announcements about seat belt use and driving tired. He should have been honest from the get go. he already has issues with his friend from public housing in Chelsea and then helping that man’s son get a job on the board with the RMV when he had been convicted of drunk driving. What’s up with all of that? He is not looking so squeaky clean.
johnk says
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz, this story is a loser for you Republicans because it’s not a story.
Thank you socialworker and welcome, as I see this is your first post (ha, ha, ha, ha), well, under this handle anyway.
Ryan says
“Socialworker’s” IP address comes from the state republican party’s offices 😛