Ryan Dunn death: Did Jackass star's love for booze and fast cars claim his life?

Jackass star Ryan Dunn, who died in a fatal car crash early Monday morning, could have been alive today if not for his love for booze and fast cars.

Ryan Dunn, whose career spanned reality TV shows and movies like Jackass, Viva La Bam, Homewrecker, and Proving Ground, never hesitated to throw caution to the winds, toy with danger or flirt with death.

Dunn gained popularity during his lifetime by performing various crude, dangerous, ridiculous, and self-injuring pranks and stunts.

And, Dunn loved drinking and driving fast cars.

Dunn's love for fast cars and the danger it posed was evident in 2005. That year, in April, Dunn crashed his car in West Whiteland Township but miraculously survived the accident. He was charged with DUI and was forced to complete a program designed for first-time, non-violent offenders.

However, Dunn failed to learn his lesson and over the years, he received 23 driving citations, including for speeding and careless driving, driving with suspended license, driving an unregistered vehicle, parking-related transgressions, and criminal mischief-damage to property.

April, mother of Jackass costar Bam Margera, said Dunn always drove too fast and she yelled at him all the time about that. However, he did not heed her warnings.

On Monday, around 2:38 a.m., Dunn was driving his Porsche 911 GT3 on Route 322, when his car veered off the road, flew into the air and crashed into a patch of trees. The car immediately caught on fire and both Dunn and his friend and Jackass costar Zachary Daniel Hartwell, who were in the car, died on spot.

Wondering what made the Porsche crash? The police said Dunn was driving his Porsche at around 140 mph on a 55 mph road, or nearly 2.5 times ABOVE the permissible speed limit.

Speed may have been a contributing factor to the accident, West Goshen Police Chief Michael Carroll said.

The initial crash reconstruction investigation determined that Mr. Dunn's vehicle was traveling between 132-140 mph at the time of the collision, he said.

Wondering how bad the crash was?

I've never seen a car destroyed in an automobile accident the way this car was, even before it caught on fire, Carroll told Radar Online. The automobile actually came apart. It was unbelievable and I've been on a lot of fatal accident scenes. This was by far the worst I've ever seen.

However, it was not just overspeeding that killed Dunn.

Dunn loved a good drink and police said he was drunk when he was driving the car.

Preliminary toxicology report has revealed that Dunn's blood alcohol concentration (BAC) was 0.196 percent, or nearly 3 times MORE than the legal limit in Pennsylvania (0.08 percent).

Investigations revealed that prior to the acciden, Dunn was partying and drinking heavily at a bar called Barnaby’s of America, not too far away from the crash site.

A photo of Dunn drinking with his friends was also tweeted a couple of hours before the accident.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), speeding is the primary cause of about one-third of all automobile fatalities. And, one of the primary causes of automobile fatalities is drinking and driving.

The crowd was just pouring in. It was a massive party, with people everywhere, drinking, Thaddeus Kalinoski told the Daily Mail, who was drinking with Dunn for five hours at the bar.

He (Dunn) was drinking quick. He ordered for the entire bar, Kalinoski said.

Though Frank Herron, the bar manager, said Dunn didn't look drunk, according to people who were at the bar, Dunn had drunk multiple kinds of alcohol, including at least three beer and three shots of whiskey.

The police said Dunn and Hartwell died of blunt and thermal trauma.

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