Alcohol may have caused fatal Saint John crash

Alcohol likely played a role in a single-vehicle crash in New Brunswick last weekend that killed a teenage girl, police say.

There were several open liquor bottles at the scene where Kylee Wallace, 15, died last Saturday night in east-end Saint John, said Const. Trevor Jones, a collision reconstruction expert with the Saint John Police.

"We're investigating possible impairment and speed as a contributing factor to the collision," he said.

Jones said only two of the teens in the car were of legal drinking age.

Wallace, a Grade 10 student at Saint John High, was in a car with five other teens that veered off Hillcrest Road and down a nine-metre embankment. She was thrown from the vehicle. The five other teens walked away with scrapes and bruises.

Jones also believes the vehicle was going faster than the posted speed limit of 50 kilometres per hour.

"Certainly excessive, or maybe extreme for that area. It's quite a hilly, windy road. There have been incidents in the past where young people have gone out on that road, just for the thrill of driving fast on it," he said.

Jones said police are waiting for forensic lab results before deciding whether any charges will be laid.

Susan MacAskill, regional manager for MADD Atlantic, said her organization is working with the New Brunswick government to change the provincial Motor Vehicle Act for graduated licence drivers.

MADD wants to see zero tolerance for alcohol and drugs for the first five years a person holds a driver's licence, she said Friday..

"Certainly, this time of year there seems to be celebrating the end of the school year, and the consumption of alcohol is a component of those celebrations," MacAskill said. "So, there does seem to be a higher number of incidents this time of year."