A Waukesha man who ran a stop sign and slammed into a couple's car as they raced toward the hospital in November 2024 has been sentenced to nine months in jail and two years of probation, after fleeing the crash scene and later refusing sobriety testing, according to police and court records. Nicholas Rubenzer pleaded guilty to felony hit-and-run and no contest to a misdemeanor this past July.
The crash happened at Broadway and Pleasant Street in downtown Waukesha, according to FOX6 News Milwaukee, which reported that Rubenzer ran a stop sign and hit the couple's car, per police. Waukesha County prosecutors said the woman was driving her husband to the hospital for stomach pain when the collision totaled their vehicle. The impact was severe enough that a piece of the victims' car punctured all the way through the driver's-side door of Rubenzer's own car, the outlet reported.
The location carries its own grim irony. The crash site sits roughly 1.3 miles from ProHealth Waukesha Memorial Hospital, according to local business listings, meaning the couple was minutes from care when Rubenzer's car struck theirs around 2 a.m.
Driver Fled, Then Refused Every Test
Rubenzer left the scene without slowing down or checking on the victims, per police cited by the station's report. Officers later found his car in a Kwik Trip parking lot; he and a passenger, Craig Collingwood, told police they had walked to the gas station and were found inside it. When investigators moved to arrest Rubenzer, he tried to get away, per investigators.
Police said Rubenzer refused field sobriety tests, a breath test, and a blood draw at the scene. That refusal set in motion Wisconsin's Implied Consent Law, under which driving on state roads implies consent to chemical testing after an arrest — refusing normally triggers an automatic 12-month license revocation, according to Melms Law. Because Rubenzer refused, officers had to obtain a warrant to force a blood test, which ultimately showed his blood alcohol level was nearly three times the legal driving limit.
Fleeing the Scene Is a Separate Crime Under State Law
Under Wisconsin Statute § 346.67, drivers involved in a crash that causes injury or property damage are required to stop immediately, check what was struck, exchange contact and registration information, and render reasonable aid, according to WI Criminal Defense. Failing to do so in an injury crash can itself be charged as a felony, separate from any impaired-driving offense. That is the statute prosecutors used to charge Rubenzer with felony hit-and-run in connection with the November 2024 crash.
A Waukesha County judge sentenced Rubenzer to nine months in jail and two years of probation. Collingwood, the passenger, pleaded guilty to one drug possession count after being charged with two counts by the Waukesha County District Attorney's Office; he was sentenced to two years of probation.
A Pattern Waukesha Prosecutors Have Seen Before
This is not the first time Waukesha County prosecutors have pursued felony hit-and-run charges tied to impairment. In May 2024, prosecutors charged another local driver with six felonies, including felony hit-and-run and a fourth OWI offense, after he intentionally reversed into a pedestrian outside a Waukesha bar and fled, FOX6 News Milwaukee reported at the time.
The pattern reflects a statewide problem. Wisconsin recorded 19,085 hit-and-run crashes in 2024 alone, resulting in 32 deaths and 2,214 injuries, according to Wisconsin Department of Transportation figures. Separately, state crash data shows impaired-driving crashes caused 163 deaths out of 7,067 total incidents that year — making alcohol and drug impairment far more lethal per crash than distracted driving, per an analysis from Wellbrook Recovery.
The scale of repeat impaired driving in Wisconsin is also striking. As of 2022, nearly 495,000 licensed drivers in the state had at least one OWI conviction on record, and more than 131,000 had multiple offenses, according to data cited by the Herrling Clark Law Firm. Wisconsin remains the only state where a first-offense OWI is generally treated as a civil forfeiture rather than a crime. Waukesha County drivers convicted of OWI-related offenses are required to complete a Driver Safety Plan Assessment within 60 days through the Addiction Resource Council to maintain or regain driving privileges.
Nationally, the trend lines are moving the wrong way. Research from the transportation nonprofit TRIP found that Wisconsin traffic fatalities rose 8% between 2013 and 2023, with fatal and serious injury crashes generating $31.3 billion in economic and quality-of-life costs in 2023 alone. Information for this story came from the Waukesha Police Department, the Waukesha County District Attorney's Office, and Wisconsin Circuit Court records.
