ATTLEBORO - Police suspect the driver of a sport utility vehicle was speeding late Wednesday night when he crashed into a Jeep and continued another several hundred feet before striking a cement wall on the Thacher Street bridge.

Randy Cummings, 24, who police say was from Somersworth, N.H., but lived on Reynolds Street in Attleboro with his girlfriend, was pronounced dead at the scene of the 11:45 p.m. accident.

Cummings was traveling east on Thacher Street when he collided with the rear of a Jeep, pushing that vehicle on top of a wall of 3-foot-tall railroad ties at 268 Thacher St., near Prairie Avenue, police said.

"He hit the Jeep and left at a high rate of speed," police Capt. George Bussiere said Thursday.

Cummings continued driving on Thacher Street until he lost control of his 2000 Chevrolet Blazer, struck the left side of the bridge wall, drove over a traffic island and then head-on into a bridge retaining wall, Bussiere said. The Blazer then careened right following the impact, coming to rest about 40 feet away, Bussiere said.

The vehicle hit the retaining wall with such force that the wall cracked, police said.

Prairie Avenue is about 500 feet from the Thacher Street bridge.

"There are indications that alcohol was involved, but it will have to be determined by toxicology tests," Bussiere said.

Investigators and state police accident reconstruction experts are trying to determine how fast Cummings was driving at the time of both crashes.

In an odd circumstance, police have charged the driver of the Jeep with drunken driving, but say he was a victim in the accident and not the cause of the crash.

The driver of the Jeep, Sean M. Caponigro, 31, of 136 County St. in Attleboro, was not injured, police said.

Caponigro told police he pulled out of Prairie Avenue onto Thacher Street, and was struck from behind soon afterward, according to a police report.

Caponigro pleaded innocent in Attleboro District Court Thursday to a charge of drunken driving, and declined to discuss the accident when approached by a reporter from The Sun Chronicle.

Police say Cummings, who had attended college at Johnson & Wales University, was at a Pawtucket restaurant where his girlfriend works, but left before her shift ended. Both drivers were the sole occupants of their vehicles, police said.

The accidents were investigated by officers Keith Bussiere and Stephen Graney with assistance of James Dufort and John Hynes.

Detectives Lt. John Otrando and Jeffrey Peavey are continuing the investigation with the assistance of state police detectives with the Bristol County District Attorney's Office.