Maryland Car Accident Attorney Blog
Hurricane Sandy took many lives and left many more homeowners and families in desperate circumstances up and down the East Coast. But weather emergencies can also cause problems for drivers and can even threaten the lives of men, women and children attempting to get out of the way of such deadly storms. As Baltimore personal injury lawyers, my firm knows the pain and heartache that a fatal traffic accident can cause a family who has lost a loved one. The tragedy is that many single- and multi-vehicle roadway accidents could perhaps be prevented, though sadly not all.
Whether a roadway collision occurs in the Rockville, Gaithersburg, Bowie or Washington, D.C., area, the results can be very similar, though the circumstances are usually unique to that particular crash. In traffic accidents caused, at least in part, by inclement weather conditions, the normally safe and practical flow of traffic can become chaotic and confused. Even the best drivers can be caught unprepared for what follows.
Regardless of whether one is driving a small economy car, a mid-size sedan, large SUV or semi tractor-trailer rig, nature can throw some deadly conditions in one’s way. No matter if you live or work, ignoring the weather at times like these is to invite disaster. As the old saying goes, “Knowledge is power,” so take advantage of our modern information society and stay connected when the going gets tough. It could end up saving your life, or the lives of those in your vehicle.
This seems to ring true as we looked back to an accident that occurred during the impending storm, Hurricane Sandy. At that time, an older Maryland woman was killed in a two-vehicle traffic wreck in Clarksburg, MD. According to news reports, the crash was likely weather-related though police at the time were still investigating the fatal head-on collision between the victim’s passenger car and a sport utility vehicle.
Based on those reports, the crash that happened in Montgomery County involved two cars that collided head-on along a stretch of Frederick Rd. in Clarksburg. According to police reports, a southbound Nissan sport utility vehicle crossed over the centerline and struck an ’03 Jaguar sedan heading the opposite way at the intersection of Frederick and Brinks roads. Police investigators had stated that witnesses to the crash noted that there was a great deal of water over the roadway in the immediate vicinity of the fatal wreck.
As a result of the collision, which occurred a little before noon on October 29, the 66-year-old Jaguar driver was killed; pronounced dead at the crash site. News reports indicated that both the driver and the passenger riding in the Nissan Pathfinder SUV received non-life-threatening injuries; however, those two individuals were taken to the local trauma center for medical attention.
Officials for Montgomery County told news outlets that the crash forced a shut down of Brink Rd., from Frederick to Ridge Rd. and that Frederick was shut down at the site of the deadly car accident. At the time of the news item, police had yet to determine if the collision was a weather-related event, which authorities indicated it may have been. In fact, according to one account, a local news reporter at the scene noted via Twitter that there was water in the roadway.
That crash, the cause of which obviously had yet to be determined, was nonetheless an object lesson in the dangers of bad weather and the possibly life-threatening nature of these kinds of storms to those traveling the highways and surface streets of our state.
Report: Fatal Crash in Clarksburg Weather-Related, Patch.com, October 29, 2012