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A New Jersey family is mourning a young woman, with a bright future, who was killed by a suspected drunk driver.

Despite dozens of driving citations and drug arrests, controversy over the state's breathalyzer test kept the driver on the road.

"It's just not fair that's she's gone, this lady took our child, and I want her to pay for it," Waverly Haines said.

Waverly said she has to be strong for her daughter Rebecca Haines.

Rebecca, 24, died last week after a suspected drunk driver slammed into her car in Washington Township.

"I have not accepted this, I don't know when I will ever accept this," Waverly said.

Rebecca served in the United States Navy for four years, with three tours in the Persian Gulf.

She wanted to become a veterinarian, so she went to college full-time and worked a part-time job to help pay for it.

Rebecca was also saving for a wedding she was to have in June.

Rebecca's fiancé, Walter Derry, remembers the last time he spoke with her.

"I remember her calling me from Wal-Mart at 10 o'clock and telling me she was going to be home soon," Derry said.

Derry said the woman accused of causing the accident that killed Rebecca was a quote: "a time bomb on the road."

"I just don't understand how somebody can live their life so recklessly," Derry said.

The woman charged with Rebecca's death, Linda Bianchi, had been arrested for drunk driving last summer, but was driving because of her case was on appeal because of a legal challenge to a new breath test.

"We're just outraged that someone like this was allowed to slip through the cracks, be on the road driving a vehicle," Waverly said.

The Haines family will be in court this Friday for a bail reduction hearing for the suspected drunk driver.

Story Two:

WOODBURY Relatives of Rebecca Haines embraced outside the courtroom Friday morning after learning that the woman accused of causing the accident that killed the 24-year-old would stay behind bars.

A defense request to lower the $150,000 bail for Linda Bianchi, 45, of Marlton, had been denied. he "deserves to stay in jail," Haines' older brother Charles Wright said in the hallway.

"Who's to say she's going to stop driving?" asked Michelle Butrun, Haines' cousin, who wondered what would happen if Bianchi had been released. "Now, she's stuck in jail where she belongs."

Haines, who had recently moved to Williamstown with her fiance, was driving home from work at about 10 p.m. on Oct. 1, when, police say, Bianchi blew a red light at the intersection of the Black Horse Pike and Berlin-Cross Keys Road, slamming into the victim's car.

Police found no signs that Bianchi had attempted to brake.

"It appears the only reason her car finally stopped was because it stopped working," Assistant Prosecutor Laurie Cimino said in court.

Haines' mother, Waverly, explained that the defendant's vehicle was "encompassed" into her daughter's and dragged the car 50 feet after the initial impact.

"In my eyes, she's a time bomb waiting to go off," Walter Derry said of Bianchi. "If it wasn't my fiancee, it could have been a school bus full of kids."

Rebecca Haines died a few hours after the accident from massive head trauma and other injuries.

Story Three:

Earlier this month, Rebecca D. Haines, a Navy veteran with three tours in the Persian Gulf, a bride-to-be with a June wedding date, became yet another drunken-driving victim, police said.

But, Haines' case was unusually tragic because the woman accused of crashing into her had been convicted of drunken driving earlier this summer.

That woman - Linda Bianchi, 45 - should have lost her license for a minimum of three months, starting in August, but she was allowed to keep her privileges thanks to an order from the New Jersey Supreme Court.

In January 2006, the high court ordered that sentences be stayed for nearly all first-time offenders while the justices sort out a legal challenge against the new Alcotest breath-testing machine used by police.

As a result, Bianchi and more than 10,000 other convicted drunken drivers are still on the road. Bianchi, though, appears to be the first one accused of killing someone in a subsequent drunken-driving crash.

"Everybody has been waiting for the other shoe to drop," said Jeffrey E. Gold, a Cherry Hill lawyer who has represented the New Jersey State Bar in the Alcotest matter. "How many cases can you stay? It's going to happen."

Haines' family, who held a short burial yesterday, were outraged to learn of Bianchi's past.

"They actually put this lady behind the wheel? It's definitely the law's fault," said Walter Derry, Haines' fiance. "She should never had been able to step behind the wheel ever again."

Bianchi, of the 100 block of Cambridge Avenue in Marlton, was arrested on Friday, four days after crashing into Haines at Black Horse Pike and Berlin-Cross Keys Road in Washington Township.

Bianchi ran a red light without braking around 10 p.m., crashed into Haines' Chevrolet Cavalier and pushed the car about 50 yards, investigators and family said.

Officers said they found prescription drugs in Bianchi's car and noted an "odor of alcohol."

Haines, 24, of Birch Drive in Mount Laurel, was flown to Cooper University Hospital in Camden, where she died about three hours after the crash.

Bianchi, charged with vehicular homicide, remains held on $150,000 bail in the Gloucester County jail. It could not be determined yesterday if she had an attorney.

Bianchi has been involved in at least 10 other traffic accidents, and she had several previous arrests related to heroin and drug paraphernalia, according to court records.

She also was convicted of drunken driving in 1992, but state law allows people to be considered first-time offenders 10 years after a previous conviction.

That's why she was considered a first-time offender this summer, when she was convicted of drunken driving in Cherry Hill.

The fight over the Alcotest device, which has replaced the old Breathalyzer machines in 17 of the state's 21 counties, has stretched out for years, with defense attorneys attacking the Alcotest's reliability.

The Supreme Court, attempting to settle the issue, intervened in January 2006, ordering sentences stayed and appointing a special master to collect evidence and submit a report.

That report was issued earlier this year, but the court asked the special master to collect more evidence and issue another report, due at the end of this month.

Gold figures that a final Supreme Court ruling may not come until early 2008.

By then, two years worth of drunken-driving convictions - as many as 20,000 - will have piled up.

Drunken drivers can be convicted on just the physical evidence - usually a field sobriety test and the observations of the arresting officer.

Gold said the state should have allowed cases to proceed on just the physical evidence, even though those convictions carry lesser penalties, until the Alcotest controversy is resolved.

"What happens when you have no punishment? Maybe this is what happens," he said. "No punishment? What kind of deterrence is that?"

He also noted, though, that a suspended license is no guarantee that a drunken driver won't get behind the wheel again - sober or otherwise.

Bianchi would have to surrender her license as a condition of bail, said Gloucester County Prosecutor Sean F. Dalton.

"She has an abysmal driving history and shouldn't be on the road," he said.

Derry, though, feels like the law "failed us."

Derry, also a Navy veteran, met Haines aboard the USNS Arctic. He proposed to her in Dubai, while on a deployment.

"It was Christmas time over there . . . underneath a big Christmas tree they had in the middle of the desert," he said. "I didn't have the ring until later."

He said Haines - "Becky" - grew up in Medford and was a graduate of Lenape High School. She joined the Navy after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Both recently got out of the service. They bought a house in Williamstown this past Valentine's Day, and planned a summer wedding.

Haines was headed to nursing school at Our Lady of Lourdes, and she was selling cell phones at Wal-Mart to help make ends meet, Derry said.

"We knew we were life partners and soulmates," he said. "We could sit anywhere, say nothing, be quiet and be happy."

Derry erected a cross Sunday at the crash site - a crash he thinks should have been prevented.

"I abide the law and look to the law to take care of the community," he said. "But it has failed us."

Story Four:

Rebecca Danielle Haines, 24, had her whole life planned out.

She was engaged to be married to her longtime fiance, Walter Derry, and they had recently bought a home in Williamstown.

She was accepted to Our Lady of Lourdes nursing school and served four years in the Navy as an operations specialist third class petty officer, traveling to the Persian Gulf on the USNS Arctic to refuel and deliver supplies to ships stationed overseas.

But on Oct. 1, shortly after 10 p.m., Haines's southbound Chevrolet Cavalier was struck by a westbound Toyota Avalon that allegedly ran a red light at Berlin-Cross Keys Road, smashing into Haines on the driver side of the car.

Haines died of head injuries shortly after 1 a.m. Tuesday at Cooper University Hospital, Camden.

Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office spokesman Bernie Weisenfeld said vehicular homicide charges were filed against the driver, Linda Bianchi, 45, of Marlton. Authorities say she sped through the intersection, fatally striking Haines.

Bianchi was taken to the Women's Division of the Gloucester County Department of Corrections Saturday and held on $150,000 bail. Bianchi must surrender her driver's license as a condition of bail.

"She's very outgoing and she was always friendly to everyone," said Browns Mills resident Robert Watson, who was stationed on the Arctic with Haines for about three years. "She was always willing to help people. She would have been a good mother."

A Marlton native and raised in Medford and Mount Laurel, Haines graduated from Lenape High School in 2002.

A memorial service took place Friday evening at Mathis Funeral Home for family and friends.

"He's devastated," family friend Nancy Watson said of Haines's fiance, Derry. "They've been together for six years."

Haines was awarded several service medals before she left the Navy, including a Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and a Navy/Marine Corps Achievement Medal, Navy spokesman Mike McLellan said.