5 Adults, 2 Children Die In 4 Accidents In One of N.J.'s Deadliest Days

Traffic deaths are down in New Jersey this year, but there was a big spike over a 24-hour span, from Friday to Saturday.

Four accidents led to seven deaths in what could have been one of the state’s deadliest days in years. State Police said “it was not a typical weekend,” even with the increased traffic heading to the Jersey Shore on a beautiful summer Saturday.

The four accidents involved the following:

• The driver of a Honda Accord involved in Saturday night’s fatal accident on interstate 78 in Warren was driving “well over 100 mph” before the car crashed into trees on the side of the road – killing the 39-year-old driver as well as his 9-year-old son. The driver, Stephen Weekes of Bethlehem, Pa. and his son, Anthony Weekes, of Jamaica, N.Y., were both declared dead at the scene.
• The State Police say they have arrested and charged Bhavuk Uppal, 22, of Mountain Lakes, who caused a chain reaction crash that killed a man, a woman and a baby early Saturday morning at 1:37 a.m. Based on the preliminary investigation, K Santiago-Madera, 26, of Bronx, N.Y., was stopped in traffic in a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee in the left-center lane of westbound Interstate 80 at milepost 34.7. A 2004 Kia sedan, which contained three occupants, was stopped in traffic behind the Jeep Grand Cherokee. Uppal was driving a 2014 Cadillac Escalade in the left-center lane when he struck the Kia, which caused it to strike the Jeep Grand Cherokee. As a result of the collision, the Kia became fully engulfed in flames. The occupants of the Kia were pronounced dead at the scene at 4 a.m.
• A Malvern woman was killed in a head-on car accident in Atlantic County, N.J. on Saturday, according to reports. Suzanne Tolley, 61, was pronounced dead on the scene of the accident, which happened around 7 p.m. on State Highway 49, nj.com reported. According to the report, Tolley was a passenger in a car that crashed head-on while trying to pass another car.
• A 25-year-old motorcyclist died early Saturday morning several hours after a collision with a car at an intersection in Lodi, police said. Michael White of Lodi was heading north on Memorial Drive about 10:30 p.m. Friday on his Honda CBR Motorcycle, when a southbound Toyota Corolla turned east onto Washington Street and crashed, according to northjersey.com. There has not been a determination whether the traffic signal at the intersection was ignored, or whether high speed or other factors contributed to the accident, Franco said.

The most recent comparable day happened in August 2014, when six people were killed in accidents on New Jersey roads, according to the nj.com report.

Traffic fatalities are down in 2015 compared to 2014, but ahead of 2013, according to the State Police. So far, 274 people were killed in 257 accidents, compared to 281 at this time in 2014 and 263 in 2013.

Sgt. Jeff Flynn, a spokesman for the State Police, said none of the accidents appeared to have any connection.

“There’s no connection. There was no inclement weather we can attribute it to,” he said. “It was just a very tragic day in New Jersey.”

Rapper Hussein Fatal, a founding member of the Tupac Shakur-led rap group the Outlawz, was reportedly one of the people died on Saturday. He was 38 years old, according to The Boombox and nj.com. No further information was available at press time.

But Flynn said he had no record of Fatal dying in any of the State Police-patrolled areas.

Photo: A northern New Jersey woman was killed in May after her vehicle crossed over a double-yellow line and collided with a dump truck being driven by a Madison man.