Suffolk DA Reaches Road Safety Settlement with Tour Company in Fatal Crash
Agreement Mandates Cameras, Sensors, Additional Personnel, and Charitable Donation
BOSTON, Dec. 15, 2017—Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley today announced that he had reached a compliance agreement with Boston Duck Tours Ltd. and one of its drivers that will help to prevent collisions like the one that claimed the life of 28-year-old Allison Warmuth last year.
“The enhanced safety measures set out in this agreement reduce driver distraction and increase the safety of vulnerable road users on scooters, mopeds, and bicycles,” Conley said. “This is a fair result that incorporates significant input from Ms. Warmuth’s family and leaves all our options on the table in the event of noncompliance.”
The agreement was finalized Monday and reflects more than a year of factual investigation and legal analysis by Suffolk prosecutors. Under its terms, Boston Duck Tours Ltd. has made or will soon make significant technological and personnel changes to improve the safety of its amphibious vehicles on Boston’s roadways.
Boston Duck Tours Ltd. has already added a second employee to each duck boat during each tour, so that operators will no longer be distracted by the additional duties of delivering a sightseeing monologue. The company has also installed cameras capturing the area immediately in front of each duck boat, equipment to record and maintain that footage, monitors to display th footage for drivers, and proximity sensors to the front and rear of each duck boat to notify operators when the vehicle is within two feet of any object. The company has already instituted personnel changes that include:
· Obtaining RMV reports for all employees who operate duck boats and updating those reports annually;
· Not hiring or employing any operator with two or more moving violations in any calendar year during his or her employment or the 10 years prior to employment;
· Not hiring or employing any operator with five or more moving violations in any 10-year period, with possible exceptions if the 10-year period concluded more than 15 years prior to application or employment; and
· Requiring all operators to attend a safe driving course annually.
Boston Duck Tours will also institute personnel changes, effective immediately, that include:
· Not hiring or employing any operator at fault for three or more collisions in any five-year period;
· Not hiring or employing any operator convicted of a felony connected to or associated with the operator’s driving record; and
· Requiring safety re-training for any operator who, while operating a duck boat, receives a traffic citation known to Boston Duck Tours Ltd. or is at fault in a collision known to Boston Duck Tours Ltd.
Additionally under the agreement, Boston Duck Tours Ltd. will contract with an independent vehicle engineering firm to review compliance with the terms of the agreement and provide a written report on the functionality of the sensors, cameras, monitors, and recording system each year through 2022. Should the independent reviewer offer any recommendations as to modification to those components, Boston Duck Tours Ltd. has agreed to implement them.
Boston Duck Tours Ltd. further agreed to modify its tour routes each April 30 through 2022 to avoid the area where Allison Warmuth was killed on that date last year and to make a $5,000 donation to the nonprofit Livable Streets Alliance.
Finally, Boston Duck Tours Ltd. agreed to bar the employee who struck and killed Allison Warmuth from employment as an operator on any of its duck boats, and that operator agreed not to appeal the civil citation issued to him by Boston Police in connection with that collision.
If Boston Duck Tours Ltd. and the operator comply with their obligations under the agreement, then Suffolk prosecutors will take no further action to bring charges against the company and/or the operator who struck Warmuth as she and a friend rode her 2014 Cali Classic scooter near the corner of Beacon and Charles streets on April 30, 2016. Warmuth suffered fatal injuries; her friend rolled out of the larger vehicle’s path and was not physically injured.
In considering this resolution, Conley said, prosecutors considered the relative strengths and weaknesses of evidence admissible at trial, the likelihood of success in light of other motor vehicle homicide prosecutions in Massachusetts, the maximum penalties of a $3,000 fine or house of corrections time available on conviction, the penalties actually imposed by judges in similar cases, and the prospective benefits of the safety and personnel policies the agreement would put in place.
Together, those factors weighed in favor of negotiation. If at any time before 2022 Boston Duck Tours Ltd. intentionally violates any substantive term of the agreement, however, Conley’s office maintains its authority to seek criminal charges.
Assistant District Attorney Adrian Bispham led the investigation into Warmuth’s death and the legal analysis of potential charges. Anite Cetoute was the victim-witness advocate assigned to the case.
