Friends don't let friends drink and drive

@BAM_MARGERA I just lost my best friend, I have been crying hysterically for a full day and piece of shit roger ebert has the gall to put in his 2 cents

@BAM_MARGERA About a jackass drunk driving and his is one, fuck you! Millions of people are crying right now, shut your fat fucking mouth!

To begin with, I offer my sympathy to Ryan Dunn's family and friends, and to those of Zachary Hartwell, who also died in the crash. I mean that sincerely. It is tragic to lose a loved one. I also regret that my tweet about the event was considered cruel. It was not intended as cruel. It was intended as true.

I have no way of knowing if Ryan Dunn was drunk at the time of his death. What I knew before posting my tweet was that not long before his death, he posted a photo on Tumbler showing himself drinking with two friends. I tweeted:  

What did I mean by that? I meant exactly what I wrote. I wasn't calling Ryan Dunn a jackass. In Twitter shorthand, I was referring to his association with "Jackass." I thought that was clear. I note that Bam Margera uses the word "jackass" in the same way in his tweet. [Tuesday p.m.note: Of course there was a double meaning. I was implying that someone who drinks and drives is a jackass. Just as I was when I was drinking.]

The story I read was on the site of NBC Philadelphia, which wrote:

"The one-car accident happened on Route 322 around 2:30 a.m., according to Officer Geiger with West Goshen police. The 2007 Porsche 911 GT3 shot through about 40 yards of trees before it hit the last one and exploded into flames, according to police. The police press release reads, 'Preliminary investigation revealed that speed may have been a contributing factor to the accident'."

The story also reported: "Dunn's passenger, 30-year-old Zachary Hartwell of West Chester, Pa., was also killed. Hartwell worked as a production assistant on the movie Jackass Number Two and starred in Bam Margera's movie Minghags." Hartwell, who was 30, was newly married.

In stories posted Tuesday morning, it was written that Ryan Dunn reportedly drank three light beers and three shots before he drove away from Barnaby's in West Chester at around closing time. No one said if he had been drinking earlier.

In a touching interview with the NBC station, Bam Margera's mother, April, said Dunn was a fast driver and that she told him to slow down "every day" following a bad accident he was involved in more than a decade ago. "He drove too fast and I yelled at him all the time about that," she said.