Wood County — Man Dead After Fatal Accident on FM 14
Posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019 at 9:18 pm
A fatal solo-car accident on FM 14, about 10 miles north of Hawkins, occurred on Tuesday, January 22, 2019, that resulted in one death.
Preliminary investigations report that Bobby Ray Turbeville, a 77-year-old man from Mineola, was driving a 1999 Ford F-150 when his right side tires slid off the roadway. This then caused him to skid across the roadway and hit a tree. He was subsequently pronounced dead at the scene.
According to Wood County officials, Turbeville was not wearing his seatbelt.
The accident is still under investigation.
It is unfortunate to hear of the passing of Bobby Ray Turbeville, but it is even more unfortunate to realize that his life is not the first one that is taken by a car accident. Car accidents like this are fairly common nowadays. In a statistics done by the National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA), car accidents occur almost every minute of every day, and there is always a car accident that results in death every 16 minutes. This can be translated to roughly about 6 million car accidents every year and about 90 people dying in car accidents every day just in the U.S. alone.
Moreover, according to statistics, about 16% of these car accidents are crashes where the vehicle leaves the road. In this type of car accident, a car would usually crash into a lamppost, a tree, or a building. Lamppost and tree collisions are considered to be generally serious, considering that they comprise 31% of vehicular accident fatalities.
The leading causes of these crashes are said to be operator error and pedal error. Operator error means drivers accelerated too much or were speeding or were in the wrong gear, while pedal error usually means the driver made the mistake of stepping on the gas pedal instead of the brake. Aside from these two, other possible causes are drunken driving, traffic accidents, medical emergencies, and even the weather and age of the driver.
If you are a victim of this kind of car accident, or you know someone who is, or you lost a loved one because of this, then please don’t hesitate to ask for help. The police will be there for you, but more than that, car accident lawyers are willing to help you in protecting your rights and in getting you the justice that you deserve.
