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Pandya v. State2/28/2005
ndya, a Rutgers student, were on their way to afternoon classes. Dhaval and Chirag Patel were high school seniors who planned to spend the Columbus Day holiday on campus with the others. Zalawadia had ridden with Rahul to classes about once a week since September, when the semester had started. Once or twice they traveled via Route 7; on the other trips they took the Pulaski Skyway route. Zalawadia was the last passenger to be picked up on October 9, entering the vehicle at about 12:35 p.m.
At about 12:44 p.m., Rahul's vehicle was traveling on the westbound portion of the roadway; the speed of his vehicle is unknown. According to Farley, traffic was"light" but the record does not disclose whether other vehicles were traveling near Rahul's vehicle in the westbound lanes as he passed through the curve toward the bridge. At that point, Rahul lost control of his vehicle, and the vehicle struck the northern curb in the right westbound lane. The vehicle then skidded across the center line into the eastbound lanes of traffic, where it struck the driver's side front door of Farley's Toyota Camry traveling in the right eastbound lane. Rahul's car ricocheted back into the left eastbound lane where it was struck by the tractor trailer truck driven by Matamoros. Matamoros had seen Rahul's vehicle entering his lane of travel and applied the brakes, but he was unable to stop in time. Zalawadia and Chirag were taken to the hospital with injuries, but only Zalawadia survived; Rahul and the other two passengers died at the accident scene.
According to Sergeant Bart De Cresce, the police officer who supervised the investigation of this accident, Rahul's vehicle crossed into the eastbound lanes"just about at the end of" the curve in the roadway. In De Cresce's view, Route 7 had"been a problem with a lot of accidents on that roadway."
Lyszczek and his supervisor went to the site a few days later; because it was unusual to have two fatal accidents at the same location so close in time, they wanted to examine how to improve conditions. Lyszczek's maintenance unit was responsible only to"replace in kind," and if a change appeared warranted, Lyszczek was to bring it to the attention of the DOT's design unit. Lyszczek had responsibility for minimizing disruptions to traffic flows, and was not involved in determining causes of traffic accidents. He did not consider himself qualified to determine whether something represented a dangerous condition. Lyszczek saw two westbound lanes of traffic marked on the roadway, and recommended changing the traffic pattern from two lanes to one. He endorsed approving the expenditure to change the roadway to one lane because he thought it was a better design, which would increase the traffic flow and" nherently one lane is always safer because you take away one movement from people[.]"
On October 12, 2000, Lyszczek and other DOT officials met with Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler to discuss plans for improving safety on the Route 7 approach to the Wittpen Bridge. A long list of planned changes was outlined in a meeting on October 16, 2000. Consistent with the direction given him at that meeting, Dhanesh Motiani, a DOT Traffic Engineer, prepared striping and pavement marking plans. Motiani later certified that, to his knowledge,"these were the only approved plans affecting the westbound travel lanes around the Charlotte Circle."
When the recommended changes were implemented, the markings on Route 7 were altered so that there was only one lane of travel in the curved part of the roadway prior to the bridge elevation. The highway was resurfaced so that the new painting would not be confused with the prior two-lane painting. A striped gore was painted i
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