(Updated at 4 p.m.) An 81-year-old man from Fairfax Station was driving in the wrong direction on Fairfax County Parkway when he fatally collided with a Tesla this morning (Thursday), police say.
Officers responded to the parkway at 12:06 a.m. after getting a call for a crash involving a 2002 Chevrolet Trailblazer and a 2022 Tesla sedan just north of the Ox Road (Route 123) interchange, according to the Fairfax County Police Department.
“Preliminarily, detectives determined the driver of the Trailblazer, Sidney Brooks…was traveling northbound on Fairfax County Parkway in the southbound lanes when he struck the driver of a 2022 Tesla sedan head-on in the southbound lanes,” the FCPD said in a news release.
Brooks and the Tesla driver were both transported to a hospital, where Brooks died. The Tesla driver experienced injuries that were determined to be not life-threatening.
Neither of the vehicles had any occupants other than the drivers.
According to police, alcohol doesn’t appear to have been a factor in the crash, but detectives are still investigating whether speed may have contributed.
Brooks is the ninth person to be killed in a vehicle crash on Fairfax County roads this year, not including ones that involved pedestrians, the FCPD says. At this time in 2023, there had been three such fatalities.
This was the fourth fatal crash in the county this week. Three pedestrians died in separate crashes, two of them on I-495 near Telegraph Road, on Sunday (March 10).
Image via Google Maps
