Police Officer Hospitalized Following Crash in Mars Hill, North Carolina (NC)

MARS HILL, NC- Citizen-times.com writes that a crash in North Carolina that involved two vehicles left a police officer with severe injuries. The incident took place this week on NC 213 in the late morning.*

The officer involved is a trooper with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol. According to a spokesperson from the Mars Hill Fire Department, the impact occurred nearly head-on between the police vehicle and the other car. 

The area where the wreck happened has a speed limit of 25 miles per hour and is close to Mars Hill University. 

Drivers were diverted around the site of the incident, but the road was reopened by the middle of the afternoon. Reports did not indicate the severity of the victims’ injuries or details regarding the cause of the collision. 

Speed is a major factor in determining the severity of a car crash. Studies have shown that when it comes to head-on impacts, drivers traveling below 43 miles per hour are more likely to survive.

When cars collide head-on at speeds above 43 miles per hour, the safety features in vehicles often fail to protect the occupants. The forces involved in such a crash are intense. Even cars that receive five-star frontal collision ratings are only tested for their performance in head-on collisions that occur at a maximum of 40 miles per hour between vehicles of roughly the same size. 

While manufacturers would like to create vehicles capable of protecting people at greater speeds, doing so is incredibly challenging because of the energy that comes into play at these higher speeds. In fact, as speeds double, the forces involved quadruple, leading to impacts that are far worse at higher speeds.

Accident News is a safety and education initiative from Montlick & Associates, designed to help people better understand and thereby avoid common accident causes.  To learn more about our injury prevention programs, including iridesafe.com - click here. We hope you are never in an accident, but if you or a family member are injured, call Montlick & Associates 24/7 for your free consultation at 1-800-LAW-NEED (1-800-529-6333) or use our live chat at Montlick.com.

Sources:

https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/madison/2020/05/26/highway-patrol-trooper-transported-mission-following-collision-mars-hill/5262430002/

https://www.thecarcrashdetective.com/how-to-survive-a-head-on-collision-slow-down-to-below-43mph/