BILLERICA, MASS. (WHDH) - A man in his 70’s was driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee by a crowd at the Lynnway Auto Auction on Wednesday as they made their bids.
Officials say the driver hit the gas instead of the break and plowed into the crowd.
Detectives are looking into the jeep itself, it’s breaking system, along with the SUV’s history.
“There’s tons of vehicles everywhere, everybody’s bumping into each other,” said Samuel Lallemand of C.M. Auto Sales, “so it can get pretty chaotic, even when nothing is going wrong.”
It’s not the first time this has happened at an auto auction.
There is video above from Framingham in October of 2015. In that case, officials said a 78-year-old driver hit the gas instead of the break, sending eight people to the hospital.
Samuel Lallemand’s friend was one of the injured.
“Basically he was hit by one of the BMW X5’s that lost control,” said Lallemand.
Lallemand has been back to the Framingham auction since then, and says after the crash they implemented new safety measures.
“They installed a barrier of pile ons,” said Lallemand, “so it separates the driving lanes from the pedestrian walkways.”
He says the Billerica auction still just relied on the painted lines, with no separation. He believes that should change.
“They should implement the same thing. Obviously they should have implemented the same safety measures, at the very least, the pile ons,” said Lallemand. “All of the auctions across the country after incidents like this happen. Two incidents in less than 2 years, that’s unacceptable.”
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