A 50-year-old Bronx man was taken into custody Friday afternoon after driving onto the Atlantic City Boardwalk near Belmont Avenue, crashing through fencing, and getting his vehicle stuck in the coastal dunes. No injuries were reported in the incident, which happened around 12:55 p.m. and left railings and fencing damaged at the scene.
The driver crossed onto the boardwalk and veered off the boards into the sand before he was taken into custody at the scene, according to News 12 New York. He now faces a lengthy list of charges, including driving under the influence, reckless driving, careless driving, leaving the scene of an accident, failure to report an accident, refusing to submit to a breath test, and operating an unregistered vehicle with a suspended registration. Local reporting identified the man as a resident of the Bronx, according to the Press of Atlantic City.
A Separate Charge With Its Own Legal Weight
The refusal charge carries consequences independent of whatever happens with the underlying DUI case. Under New Jersey's implied consent statute, N.J.S.A. 39:4-50.4a, refusing to submit to a breath test is prosecuted as its own traffic offense, one that comes with mandatory ignition interlock requirements and potential license loss regardless of the DWI outcome, per the Gray Law Group. Officers are required to read a standard statutory warning before a refusal charge can be filed.
If convicted of a first-offense DUI, the driver would face statutory penalties that include up to 30 days in jail, mandatory ignition interlock installation, fines between $250 and $400, and compulsory attendance at an Intoxicated Driver Resource Center, according to the New Jersey Office of Attorney General. Those penalties increase if blood alcohol content exceeds 0.10 percent. Statewide, New Jersey recorded 150 traffic fatalities in 2024 involving a driver with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent or higher, the state attorney general's office notes, emphasizing that alcohol-involved traffic deaths are preventable.
How Vehicles Keep Reaching Atlantic City's Boardwalk
Friday's crash raises questions about how a vehicle ended up on a promenade that the city has worked to seal off from unauthorized cars. Retractable traffic bollards have been proposed for street-end boardwalk ramps to help keep unauthorized vehicles off the wooden walkway while still allowing emergency responders through, according to Downbeach BUZZ. Under the proposal, authorized city personnel could unlock and retract the bollards, but how the driver bypassed controls near Belmont Avenue has not been detailed.
It isn't the first time a vehicle has intruded onto Atlantic City's waterfront. A Ventnor firefighter was convicted of DWI after a March 2014 crash in which he drove an SUV onto the Kingston Avenue beach and flipped the vehicle with two children inside, according to Stoloff Law; the driver avoided jail by agreeing to comply with drug and alcohol counseling requirements. More recently, in July, seven people, including two police officers, were injured on the boardwalk near Brighton Avenue when two police all-terrain vehicles collided, striking pedestrians and a boardwalk tram car, an incident whose video circulated widely on social media.
A Boardwalk Built for Walkers, Not Cars
The stakes of keeping vehicles off the boardwalk are especially high in a city where walking is a way of life rather than a pastime. Atlantic City’s Safety Action Plan also addresses pedestrian safety. Pedestrian collisions, fixed-object impacts, and right-angle crashes together accounted for nearly 70 percent of all fatal and serious injury crashes in Atlantic City between 2017 and 2021, the same plan found.
The boardwalk crash follows other recent pedestrian-safety concerns along the corridor, including an October incident in which a pedestrian died near Tropicana amid repaving work on Pacific Avenue.
