Court appearance delayed for man who crashed into bus shelter

By Dave Toplikar

Thursday, June 24, 2010 | 10:29 a.m.

A 41-year-old man who crashed his pickup truck into a bus stop shelter Monday, injuring himself, another driver and a person at the bus stop, will appear Monday morning in Las Vegas Justice Court.

Daniel J. Melin was scheduled to have his 72-hour hearing this morning, but it was continued until 7:30 a.m. Monday before Clark County Justice of the Peace William Jansen to see if the state has filed a complaint.

Melin was in the Clark County Detention Center on several charges related to the crash. Those included DUI for drugs and doing substantial bodily harm, failure to use due care, failure to render aid in an accident, failure to surrender his drivers license to a police officer and leaving the scene of an accident.

Metro Police said Melin crashed into the shelter about 12:40 p.m. near the intersection of North Rancho Drive and West Lake Mead Boulevard.

Police said his pickup truck, which was traveling north, ran a red light and collided with another vehicle before striking the shelter.

Police said Melin failed to decrease his speed at the intersection and then tried to leave the scene of the accident, going north on Rancho Drive.

Officers made contact with Melin and noticed he had slow and slurred speech and bloodshot eyes, according to the arrest report. He was also unbalanced and failed a field sobriety test, police said.

Melin told officers he had taken Soma and Roxycodine for back pain 24 hours before the incident, the report said. He said he didn’t know he was involved in an accident, police said.

Officials took Melin to University Medical Center, where he was given a blood test. Melin, a woman at the bus stop shelter and the driver of the other vehicle were treated for their injuries at a hospital.