DWI Driver Seriously Hurts Eight People in North Carolina Auto Accident
On April 23, 26-year old Ryan Boyd zipped through a red light at Johnson Street and Skeet Club Road in High Point, NC – all the while DWI, apparently – causing a serious North Carolina car accident that sent 8 people to the hospital.
Fortunately, as of this writing, no one died in the accident. However, 50-year Maria Velasquez – a mini van driver whom Ryan slammed into – remains in critical condition at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Her five children (as well as a friend) got released from the hospital. Boyd himself remains in the hospital, in serious condition, according to news reports.
You might think that a story about a careless 26-year old hurting a bunch of children while driving under the influence and zipping through red lights might cause at least a few people o “perk up.” But in today’s “info-overloaded” atmosphere, important stories are often crowded out by events like Donald Trump’s press conferences and pointless debates among talking heads on cable news.
Furthermore, when people do discuss tragedies (or near tragedies) in the auto accident world, it’s often in the service of self promotion. Injury lawyers and others often glancingly refer to tragic news stories to try to get hits off of Google and ultimately try to nab clients. While it’s fine and good for blogs to self promote, it’s also important not to trivialize the true human tragedies that arise during these events. Which is why, in this North Carolina auto accident blog, we aim to delve beyond the details of the news to get at substantive issues that might be relevant to potential clients and general readers.
To that end… when you’re looking at this case, one thing that stands out is that Mr. Boyd apparently did multiple things wrong at once. Not only did he drive DWI, but he also ran a red light… and who knows what else an investigation might reveal.
As we’ve talked about before, car, truck, bus, motorcycle accidents often are multifactorial – that is, multiple factors “collect” and set the conditions for accidents. It’s not just that a driver is DUI. It’s that he’s DUI…and he speeds…and he blasts through a red light. Understanding the multifactorial nature of accidents is key to getting compensated from them.
For instance, your North Carolina auto accident law firm will no doubt probe the details of what happened in your crash not just to build a better case, but also to look for other potential defendants. For instance, in this case, perhaps Mr. Boyd tried to stop his car, but his brakes failed, and he thus flew through the red light. If that’s true, then the manufacturer of his brakes could be liable. Not likely, at least according to our intuition. But still possible.
The moral: don’t just rely on regurgitated facts or knee jerk judgments when you evaluate the applicability of news stories to your life.
More Web Resources:
Ryan Boyd accident
Accidents are multi-factorial
