A Bronx man drove drunk down the Taconic State Parkway against oncoming traffic yesterday night, according to what police told LoHud, but there was no crash. The incident comes only two months after Diane Schuler’s wrong-way drive on the Taconic that killed her and seven others.
Gregorio Pena, 44, had a blood-alcohol level of more than twice the legal limit at .20 percent. A trooper stopped him at 10:40 p.m. north of Baldwin Road as he drove north in the southbound lanes of the Taconic, police told LoHud, but they did not say how far Pena drove. Baldwin Road is approximately one mile north of where police responded.
State police received several reports of a driver going the wrong way and responded near Underhill Avenue on the parkway. Police located the livery cab and stopped it with no passengers on board.
Authorities charged him with aggravated driving while intoxicated and driving while intoxicated and held him overnight. The livery cab driver will be arraigned in Yorktown Court later today.
Fernando A. Mateo, president of theNew York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, is not supporting him, but he did say that Pena is a "good person who made a horrible mistake."
"This is an isolated incident...99 percent of cab drivers drive safely," Mateo said . "Thank God police stoppped him before he killed somebody."
Diane Schuler drove the wrong way for nearly two miles down the Taconic in Mount Pleasant while she was going home to Long Island from a camping trip in Sullivan County on July 26. Schuler, her daughter, three young nieces died in the crash and authorities say she was intoxicated and high on marijuana.
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Three Yonkers men were also killed. Only her 5-year-old son survived the crash.
