Cary, NC — Laura Yost was riding with Spencer Saunders when his vehicle was hit by a dump truck at the McCrimmon Parkway intersection with N.C. 55 on Tuesday, September 16, 2014.
When questioned about the accident, Jerry Middleton, the driver of the dump truck said he remembered the moments leading up to the accident. He said that three cars pulled in front of him as he headed toward the intersection. When Saunders pulled out in front of him, Middleton said he had no time to stop.
There were three people inside the vehicle at the time. Saunders, Yost, and Yost’s brother, Ryan. Yost was the most seriously injured of the three. A head injury put her in a coma for a week until she passed away on Tuesday, September 23, 2014.
Local residents have complained that the intersection is dangerous. A claim that seems to be backed up by the more than 25 accidents that have happened there since January 2011.
Police are continuing to investigate.
Scene of the Accident
Commentary
Look, this was obviously a very tragic accident. And reading about it in the news, it seems as if the blame for it falls pretty squarely on the driver of the car. If we’re being perfectly honest about things, he drove out into the road when he shouldn’t have. But as I read more about what happened I found something that changed the way I looked at it quite a bit. The driver of the dump truck was being asked about what happened, and he said that before the car he ran into drove out into the road, there were two other vehicles that drove out before it, both of which he came close to hitting. He said the first two cars came close, and by the time the third came out into the road, he just didn’t have any time to stop. Well, from the sound of it, he saw that the cars were doing something dangerous, he had time to recognize it as something dangerous, yet he didn’t do anything about it.
Whatever a driver’s circumstances, he still has a responsibility to avoid accidents wherever he’s able to. This doesn’t take any blame away from the other driver. It really seems like he did something he shouldn’t have. But, to me at least, it shows that the other driver isn’t the only one to blame here. The fact that the driver of the dump truck had the right of way didn’t give him free reign to crash into any and all cars that got in his way. He had a responsibility to avoid getting into an accident, and it sounds like he didn’t take the necessary steps to do that.
— Grossman Law Offices
