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The staff members in our offices are accustomed to hearing about car crashes in the news—helping the victims of accidents that involve cars, trucks, motorcycles, and pedestrians is an important part of our practice. But it seems as though this month there have been an unusual number of dramatic crashes in eastern Washington within a short drive of our Spokane office.
We’ll look at a few of these today, while at the same time we remind all readers to drive safely, for the benefit of themselves and everyone else on the road.
On the afternoon of August 8, a head-on collision on Upriver Drive killed one driver and left a second injured. The cause of that crash wasn’t immediately determined. Later in the week, on August 13, less than half a mile away and also on Upriver Drive, a truck believed to have been traveling at over one hundred miles per hour plowed through a guardrail and rolled down to the Spokane River near Boulder Beach. The driver, unfortunately, was ejected during the crash and died at the scene.
On August 22 in Moses Lake, a recent high school graduate was killed and his passenger injured when he apparently lost control of the car and rolled into an irrigation canal. Both had to be pulled from the water by local police.
Cars and pickups aren’t the only vehicles in recent crashes. In Odessa on August 15, a local pastor was killed when the semi-truck he was driving suffered what has been reported as a brake failure and crashed into a building. Another truck crash happened on August 24 on Highway 2 in Reardan. A woman had to be airlifted to a hospital after the grain truck she was driving rolled over. In a separate incident, a man was killed on Broadway Avenue on Saturday when his motorcycle crashed into a turning truck.
Even public safety personnel have been victims of crashes this month. A Spokane County sheriff’s deputy and the driver of another vehicle were injured when the other vehicle struck a patrol car on Trent Avenue in Spokane Valley on August 11.
Property damage has been a problem as well. A crash on August 24 not only injured one person in the car seriously, but caused a gas leak. Earlier in the week, a semi had crashed into a passenger car just a few minutes’ drive from that incident, sending the car’s driver to the hospital.
What do these particular crashes have in common? Not much. Some were single vehicle, some multiple. Some happened during the day, some at night. Some led to injury, some to death.
Each of these crashes received some media attention, making them seem unusual when viewed all together. But the sad truth of the situation is that there’s nothing really out of the ordinary about any of these crashes. In 2014, Washington State saw more than 107,000 motor vehicle collisions, which resulted in more than 46,000 injuries and 462 fatalities. That means that, on average, someone is injured in a motor vehicle crash in the state every twelve minutes, while a crash leads to a death every nineteen hours.
We’re sure you do everything you can to avoid causing or being the victim of a crash. But as the stories above make clear, collisions happen very frequently, and you can’t control what other drivers are doing behind the wheel. When something like this happens to you, it’s important to work with an attorney who understands automobile accident law.
At Craig Swapp & Associates, we have years of experience helping clients get justice for the damage and injuries caused in motor vehicle crashes. Give us a call at 1-800-404-9000 or complete our form below to arrange a free consultation to discuss your case. You can also launch the LiveChat feature from any page of this website for quick answers to some of your questions.
Written By: Ryan Swapp Legal Review By: Craig Swapp