In the latest pedestrian fatality to occur in a Hampton Roads city, a 51-year-old man was hit and killed by pickup truck in Suffolk, VA. Nathaniel Thorne, 51, lost his life on the night of October 22, 2011, on Carolina Road near the intersection with Granby Street.
Our thoughts are with his family. While few details are available of the circumstances of this pedestrian fatality, in many cases a driver is to blame when a pedestrian is killed.
As experienced Virginia accident injury attorneys, my colleagues and I are alarmed by a recent spate of pedestrian deaths in cities including Suffolk, Chesapeake and Hampton. For example, I recently noted how two deaths in one week in October, 2011 in Chesapeake had pushed the toll of pedestrian deaths to a 4-year high in that city.
Unfortunately, a pedestrian was also killed in Virginia Beach In September 2011. He had been out walking his dog along Lynnhaven Parkway. Pedestrians in Hampton have faced a spate of accidents — some of them fatal in 2011. A man was seriously injured on the intersection between East Pembroke Ave and Woodland Road on Oct. 12, 2011, when he was struck by a car.
In some cases pedestrians have been injured or killed on crosswalks, it’s sometimes assumed that if a victim is not on a crosswalk when he or she is hit then the driver of the vehicle is not to blame. That isn’t always the case. Under common law in Virginia and in many other states, a pedestrian has a right-of-way at a street corner and when crossing the road under circumstances where a car/auto driver has a clear view of the pedestrian.
DM