A speeding driver died in a head-on wreck on a busy Charlotte road after smacking a truck and careening out of control into traffic, police said Friday.
The driver, 23-year-old Maurice Leach, was killed in the second of two back-to-back collisions he was involved in on Westinghouse Boulevard in Steele Creek, according to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department news release.
Leach, driving a westbound 2007 Infinity G35 car, failed to slow down before he hit the left rear corner of a 1997 Isuzu landscape truck about 10 a.m. Thursday, police said.
The Isuzu driver had just turned left from Rodney Street onto East Westinghouse Boulevard when Leach hit his truck, according to the news release.
The impact hurled Leach’s car into oncoming traffic. He then hit a 2018 Ford Transit Connect van head-on, police said. Leach later died at a hospital, according to CMPD.
The van driver was hospitalized in serious condition, police said. No update on his condition was available Saturday
Police aren’t saying how fast Leach was going, only that his speed was “excessive” and contributed to the wrecks. Leach wasn’t wearing a seat belt, police said.
Speed contributes to most Charlotte wrecks, CMPD major crash unit Detective Justin Kupfer said in a July 2022 CMPD video titled “Slow Down: Prevent Traffic Fatalities.”
Kupfer is the lead investigator of Thursday’s wrecks. CMPD urged anyone who saw the collisions or has information in the case to call Kupfer at 704-432-2169, extension 1, or the Crime Stoppers anonymous tips line at 704-334-1600.
