NJ Governor Corzine Out of Hospital, Speeds Home

by Brian A Kennedy | May 1, 2007 at 03:16 am

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New Jersey Governor John Corzine is out of the hospital following a devastating 91-mile-per-hour, no-seatbelt car crash that broke several bones and caused a wide assortment of other damage. Following a brief speech at the hospital in which he apologized for setting a "very bad example," his six-car motorcade sped him back home (he was in a custom van he purchased to hold his wheelchair):

After the brief comments, Mr. Corzine was helped into a black GMC Savana van, with tinted windows, that he bought and had specially modified for his wheelchair, and left the hospital in a six-car caravan about 1:45 p.m. His vehicle followed a black state police Crown Victoria, and was followed by a Chevrolet Suburban — like the one he was riding in at the time of the crash — a Mercedes station wagon, and two other cars. The motorcade did not use emergency lights, as it had been just before the accident.

The governor’s motorcade moved with the flow of traffic on Interstate 295, at some points sustaining speeds up to 70 miles per hour several minutes at a time, according to the speedometer of a vehicle traveling alongside; posted limits were 55 and 65. Capt. Al Della Fave, a state police spokesman, said the commander of the executive protection unit, which provides security and drivers for the governor, told him on Monday that the troopers in the motorcade had been instructed to adhere to posted speed limits. He declined to identify the driver of the governor’s van or to make any of the drivers of the motorcade available for an interview.