She lived on Long Island. It would have been impossible for her to drop the kids off at home as she was upstate that morning.
I drove that stretch of highways this weekend. I was struck with the fact that when I went through the toll booths on the Tappan Zee Bridge (where she took the call from her brother and set her phone down), the signage is actually rather good right there. If she had gotten off at Tarrytown (which is the first exit on the right), there is no way she would have died. She must have gone north on the saw mill and then up the taconic and then back down the taconic. The thing is: the north exit on the saw mill is very steep and turns all the way around. It goes down under the highway and back up steeply to the north bound lanes. If she was plastered, I'm surprised she was able to navigate that without crashing.
I'm still struck that the kids would have probably been screaming at her, right? I have a 9 yr old and she would have known that they were going the wrong way. I don't know how Diane was able to drive or do anything if the kids were screaming at her to stop.
I am from the south and have never driven on that parkway. I am just going off the YouTube video and some of the other posts I have read about the parkway. The witnesses from the documentary said she was staring straight ahead and acted like she did not notice anything. That sort of lends some support it was intentional. You are right the older kids would have known she was going the wrong way. The poor children were probably terrified which alone is unforgivable. I mean a quick accident which is the result of a drunk driver is far different than the minutes it took for her to drive the wrong way directly in to another vehicle. Truly horrible. That is why I guess I cannot get it out of my head. My husband is a cop and he told me the story of one of the worst wrecks he was first responder on. It was family driving home to Georgia from a Christmas vacation up north. The parents were in a car ahead and their three daughters were in another car shortly behind. Traffic backed up and the parents got a mile or so ahead. There was an 18 wheeler that jack-knifed and the girls car went under the trailer of the truck bisecting all of them. The parents drove all the way back to Georgia and had to be told all of their children died behind them in North Carolina. I drive that same stretch of highway everyday for work and think of that wreck everyday. The only comfort is at least for all of these children it was probably I very quick end and they did not suffer. That poor little boy will probably never be "okay".