Billerica auto auction crash driver says Jeep 'just took off'

The driver of the Jeep that suddenly accelerated at the Billerica auto auction Wednesday said that he believes the vehicle was defective.

"I'm a thousand percent sorry that anybody who got hurt...and anybody who got worse than hurt...I wish I could have changed it," said the 76-year-old man.

The man, who Boston 25 News is not identifying, has worked at the auto auction for several years. He said that everything was normal at first as he was driving slowly into the LynnWay Auto Auction building. The building is set up for there are driving lanes and safety lanes; the safety lanes is where the people gather to watch the cars go by.

He said he was driving very slowly as he was going into the building.

"Then all of a sudden, the car by itself, just took off...somehow it just accelerated," he said.

He said that he was trying to find space to drive the car as it was speeding through the building, which had other cars and hundreds of people in it.

"All I got was heads and faces in front of people...and I ended up at the end of the building," he said.

He said the whole event just took seconds. Three people were killed and a dozen were injured. The man himself suffered a broken hand and foot. Beyond that, he said it's "been very, very difficult" emotionally.

The LynnWay Auto Auction said that on Wednesday after the crash, they learned the driver didn't have a valid driver's license, though he did when they hired him. The driver told Boston 25 News he had no idea his license was suspended.

"I don't look at it every day to see when I got to renew it again...it's packed with other papers in your wallet. For whatever reason, I haven't looked at in a couple years because I had no reason to," he said.

He said that his license had just expired and wasn't revoked.

"So I'm a bad guy because I had a license that hadn't been renewed," he said.

Officials have said that they don't believe the crash was intentional and they have taken the Jeep for a full investigation into what went wrong.

"As far as I was concerned, I was driving a defective vehicle," said the driver.

The driver is not facing any charges as of now.

Cox Media Group