Advertisement RMV worker accessed Zhukovskyy's records before fatal crash, review finds 7 motorcyclists killed in crash on June 21 in Randolph, NH Share Shares Copy Link Copy

A Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles employee accessed the records of a driver whose license should have been suspended weeks before a fatal crash, but failed to take that action, according to the preliminary findings of an external review.The review of RMV actions and policies, being conducted by Grant Thornton LLP, was ordered after a crash on June 21 in Randolph, New Hampshire, which killed seven people associated with a Marine motorcycle club. The truck driver involved in the crash, 23-year-old Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, of West Springfield, has a history of driving under the influence charges and license suspensions.According to the preliminary report, the RMV did not act on information provided by the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles regarding a May 11 incident in which Zhukovskyy refused a breathalyzer test, which should have triggered the revocation of his commercial driver's license.The preliminary report also indicates that the electronic notification about the revocation of Zhukovskyy’s license was received on May 29 and a written notification was received on June 4. Grant Thornton's preliminary report indicates that an RMV employee accessed Zhukovskyy's file on May 29 in a computer system where the "Open Tasks" window indicated that a conviction should be added to the record. That employee was in Zhukovskyy's file "for about seven seconds" but exited the file without making a change."During an interview, (the employee) stated that, at the time, he had not been trained on posting convictions to drivers’ records and that his assigned duties included working on items other than convictions," the report said.The preliminary report also indicates that the employee's supervisor believed there were erroneous items appearing in the computer system. Despite that, Grant Thornton found she was aware that some of the items in the queue were accurate and worthy of manual intervention. When the written notification arrived, it should have been processed by a department that had "effectively ceased" handling any notifications from other states. Grant Thornton found that an employee of that department was "experiencing difficulty adopting" to an upgrade in the computer system and was falling behind.Former RMV Registrar Erin Deveney, who resigned as a result of the scandal, told Grant Thornton she was aware of the difficulty with the new technology and had approved prioritizing in-state citations over out-of-state notifications. She also told the authors of the preliminary report that she had informed several administration officials, including Secretary and CEO of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Transportation Stephanie Pollack."Based on our work to date, those notifications appear to have stopped being processed by the RMV in a systematic manner around 2014," the preliminary report states. Responsibility for processing the paper out-of-state notifications was supposed to transfer between departments in 2014, but Grant Thornton found it wasn't done until 2016, which left the backlog of documents unprocessed. In the wake of the fatal crash, RMV officials have processed dozens of boxes of forgotten notifications from other states, which resulted in the suspension of more than 1,600 licenses last month.Additionally, officials reported Thursday that another 869 additional suspensions were issued after comparing Massachusetts records to the National Driver Register, a database maintained by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis under the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.In a letter attached to Grant Thornton's preliminary report, Acting Registrar Jamey Tesler concurred with the "identification of certain deficiencies in the RMV's structure." He wrote the registry is already working to hire a Chief Compliance Officer, a Director of Policy and a Deputy Registrar for Safety to better coordinate the RMV's safety efforts. He also wrote that the RMV will be scheduling a meeting to discuss the leadership of the Merit Ratings Board, which was responsible for handling the written notifications.