Personal Injury Law

One Fatality and Three Severely Injured in Texas County, Missouri Crash

By Ryan Bradley, Esq.

The third week of January brought yet another tragic car accident to Texas County, Missouri. This wrongful death accident took place at 3:55 p.m. on January 19th on Route AW in Evening Shade, and was responded to by Troop G of the Missouri Highway Patrol. Gregory Williams, 53, was traveling Westbound in a 2002 Dodge truck when he failed to yield, striking the side of the 2001 Lincoln Navigator driven by Veronica Burke. Ms. Burke was traveling Northbound at the time of the crash. Other passengers in the Navigator included Brandon Burke, 24, Robert Belmontes, 12, and Marissa Belmontes, 5, all Plato residents. The Navigator traveled off the roadway, returned to the roadway, then overturned, finally coming to rest on its side in the road after ejecting all four passengers.

Ms. Burke was transported to Fort Leonard Wood Hospital where she was pronounced dead at 7:56 p.m. The other three victims were transported to the same hospital, where doctors examined them and determined they had all suffered serious injuries as a result of the car crash. None of the passengers in the Navigator were wearing safety devices at the time of the accident. Mr. Williams apparently suffered only minor injuries, and the investigation is still underway to determine whether his failure to yield was due to inattention, excessive speed, gross negligence, or another reason.

Although the reasons for this particular crash have not been determined, many crashes such as this occur when drivers are distracted by such things as talking on a cell phone, texting, eating and drinking, changing a radio station or using a GPS. More than 20 percent of all automobile crashes in the United States are caused by distraction, in one form or another. Over 6,000 people per year are killed due to driver distraction, and another half a million suffer minor to severe injuries. In fact, studies have shown using a cell phone can impair the driver?s ability to drive safely as much as having a .08 blood alcohol concentration.

Although many states are passing laws which will ban cell phone use or texting while driving, we still see accidents on a daily basis that could have been avoided if the driver had been paying attention. Hopefully the state legislatures in Missouri and other states will soon pass laws to ban usage of cellular devices without hands-free technology. Please contact your state representative today and express you concerns about cell phone usage and distracted driving.

Full post as published by Missouri Accident Lawyer Blog on February 02, 2011 (boomark / email).