DWI crash in Monroe damages utility poles, parked Jeep on Lakes Road

Richard J. Horaz, 50, of Newburgh, was driving a 2018 Ford F-150 on Lakes Road in the Village of Monroe shortly after 2 a.m. Saturday, June 27, when it left the roadway, struck a 2021 white Jeep parked in a residential driveway, hit a second utility pole and overturned. Horaz suffered minor injuries, was taken to Garnet Health Medical Center and later released. He is due in Monroe Village Court on July 15.

For Edwin Morales, who lives on Lakes Road near McElroy Place with his wife and two children, the crash fit a pattern at the same spot. “This is the third car that I have lost at the same location,” Morales said. “We were asleep and heard a bang. We went outside and saw the damage.”

At a Monroe Town Board meeting in December 2023, Orange County Legislator Peter Tuohy said residents had long complained about tailgating, illegal passing and dangerous driving on Lakes Road, also known as County Route 5. The posted speed changes along the corridor from 55 mph to 40 mph and then to 30 mph in places.

Orange County’s Traffic Safety Board was created under Local Law No. 2 of 2008 to reduce fatal and serious personal injury crashes. State law allows the Department of Transportation, working with the county superintendent of highways and affected town boards, to lower speed limits on county roads to as little as 30 mph through the formal approval process, and residents should call 911 for immediate dangerous or erratic driving and contact their local troop for other complaints. A July 22, 2025 DMV and Governor's Traffic Safety Committee release on Monroe County enforcement listed 1,305 tickets issued in a mobilization, including 291 speeding tickets and 29 impairment arrests, and unsafe speed was the leading contributing factor in fatal crashes there.