A four-year old boy was killed in a crash and his mother is battling for her life at a Charlotte, North Carolina hospital. Catawba county highway patrol informed news channel 36 WCNC that a Ms.Tina Travis sideswiped a vehicle at a gas station along Blackburn Bridge Road just beyond Maiden, N.C. around 3 p.m. Witnesses claim while they were contacting law enforcement the lady sped off down the highway, lost control and slammed right into a tree. In the course of the car accident the woman’s son died. Emergency crews airlifted Travis to Carolinas Medical Center where she is listed in critical condition. It is still unclear as to the driver’s state of mind during the incident to cause her to react as she did prior to the wreck.
This tragic and terrible consequence of this car crash is the death of a young child. Sadly, it should not have happened. The mother is in critical condition and it is still unclear exactly what caused the sequence of events that led up to the fatal crash. Our hearts go out to the Travis family in their time of grief. Although most of us have proper auto insurance, being respectful and observant of the law is a critical element that allows us to trust each other every day while driving along our roads and highways.
As an injury lawyer I see many statistics and data regarding car wrecks. The most likely causes of fatal car crashes include: distracted driving, drunk driving, aggressive driving, and speeding. Of the four, speeding is perhaps the worst culprit as many of us have been guilty of this and is widely considered an almost typical thing to do, especially if we add time pressures and traffic delays. Speeding is known as a multi-tiered threat because not only does it decrease the amount of time necessary to avoid a crash, additionally , it increases the risk of crashing as well as makes the crash more severe in the event that it does occur. In fact, based on the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), whenever speed increases from 40 mph to 60 mph, the actual energy released from a crash more than doubles. Simply slowing down and obeying posted speed limits go a long way toward making our highways less dangerous.
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