'Privacy' vs. drunk driving

February 11, 1998

The Boston Herald

Ask Linda Pacheco how she is and she says: "Busy. Too busy. Just once I'd like to be able to say there's nothing going on here."

"Here" is the Bristol County Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Pacheco is executive director. She answers the phone and a million questions, collecting and dispensing all kinds of information about drinking and driving. Plus she's the rock for people she's never met who call her in shock and in tears because the unbelievable has happened to them, because a knock on the door has forever altered their lives.

"Mind if I fax you something?" she says. This time it's about a guy who drove the wrong way on Route 24, killing himself and two others and seriously injurying two.

It happened 10 days before Christmas on a Monday night, about 8 o'clock, clear and cold. William McIntosh, 49, of Assonet, a professional driver with a lot of miles under his belt, was driving north in the southbound lane of Route 24 when his pickup truck slammed head-on into a car carrying four young people. The driver of that car, Gregory S. Souza, was only 19. His passenger, Diane Lynn Cruz, was 15. Both died instantly of massive head trauma.

Nelia Silva, 17, was med-flighted to Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, where she remains in a coma. Roy Rego, 17, suffered head injuries and a broken arm.

And why was McIntosh driving the wrong way on a major highway? State Police say they believe the crash was alcohol-related. But they can't know for certain because, according to the advisory opinion prepared by Shauna Cully Wagner, acting supervisor of public records in the secretary of state's office, revealing the results of blood tests on this dead wrong-way driver would be - are you ready for this - an invasion of his privacy.

Not so private are the deaths of Diane Lynn Cruz and Gregory Souza. Their obituaries were in the Fall River papers right along with the Christmas ads.

Diane was the daughter of Jose and Barbara (Neto) Cruz of Tiverton. She was a sophomore at Tiverton High School, a member of the Tiverton High School Band, the Middle School Band, a basketball player and a Sakonnet Schooner Cheerleader. She had received the Heather Daniels Scholastic Achievement Award in 1993.

In addition to her parents she is survived by three grandparents, three sisters, a brother, many aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.

Gregory S. Souza was the son of Robert Souza of Connecticut and Beth Davol of New Bedford. He was a cook who was taking continuing education courses. He left a mother, father, two sisters, one brother, his grandparents and great-grandparents as well as aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.

The injured kids? They count even less than the dead ones. They're just numbers now: More than 1 million people were injured in alcohol related crashes last year. They are just two.

Murder on the highway (Is there another name for it?) happens every day, 47 times a day. That's the equivalent of a busload of people, two classrooms full of kids. And the state says the blood alcohol of a suspected drunk driver is none of the public's business?

Pacheco calls it "appalling that upon a fatality the deceased victims in these crashes are blood tested without consent and so many times that information is released. I don't understand the issue of this individual's rights.

"MADD will formally ask via a letter that we be allowed to obtain the numbers," Pacheco says.

The numbers will be of small comfort to the victims' families, but they and the public, have every right to know what made a professional driver get on a familiar highway - the wrong way.