Tragic Crash on Oil Well Road in Collier County, Florida (FL)
COLLIER COUNTY, FL- Naplesnews.com writes that a tragic crash took the life of a Naples man this week in Collier County. The 29-year-old victim was traveling eastbound on Oil Well Road in the early morning when his car veered across the raised median and into westbound traffic. The front of the victim's sedan collided with an SUV that was driving the westbound lanes. The impact occurred nearly head-on.*
The incident took place close to the intersection with Victory Lanes. The driver in the other vehicle, identified as a 32-year-old woman from Naples, was injured in the collision. A one-year-old girl was also in the SUV at the time.
According to statistics, head-on crashes only account for about two percent of all car accidents. However, because of the severity of such impacts, these crashes lead to just over ten percent of crash deaths.
Medians are intended to prevent cars from entering oncoming traffic. Barriers, which are made from various materials, often work to prevent a distracted driver from simply drifting over into another lane of traffic. In some cases, the barriers work to prevent head-on collisions but lead to impacts with fixed objects. Road designers have to decide whether the risk of a head-on impact is worse on the road than would be the impact with the barrier. If the traffic on the road is traveling at high speeds, then the barriers are likely a better option than having cars strike one another head-on.
Head-on crashes are often the result of the same driver errors that cause sideswipes and run-off-the-road accidents. The consequences of a lane departure will depend on where the car travels, even though the drivers in all scenarios may have made the same error. The difference between a sideswipe and a head-on impact may depend on nothing more than which way a car drifts.
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.naplesnews.com/story/news/local/2020/09/22/naples-man-killed-crash-oil-well-road/5865710002/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-on_collision