Keith Weitzman, the truck driver who fell asleep at the wheel on December 3 of last year, incidentally hitting the car carrying former Long Beach Post publisher and innovator, Shaun Lumachi, attended court for his sentencing in the accident in Florida. Weitzman, who turned 26 on March 13 and lives in Tampa, was fined $500 and told to perform 50 hours of community service by County Judge Peary Fowler. These fines and service requirements are the maximum punishment that can be alloted for Weitzman’s citation: failure to drive in a single lane involving a fatality.
At around 11:30am on that December morning, Weitzman’s 1994 Ford F-150 veered into the opposite lane on U.S. 1 while heading northbound in Cudjoe Key at the 21-mile marker. He struck the rental car in which Lumachi was riding with co-workers Erick Serrato and Larry Rice.
At the scene, police said Weitzman showed no signs of driving under the influence, and that he was “candid and lucent.” Police did not obtain a blood sample from Weitzman, however, because according to Mosca they are not allowed to ask for one without probable cause.
Weitzman suffered head trauma and was eventually flown to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital where he was treated. His infant son, who was properly restrained in truck’s back seat, was uninjured.