Bad Start To The Weekend With Three Dead On Minnesota Roads (update)

Hopefully, it isn’t a sign for the rest of the weekend. It should be notice to everyone that they need to slow down. There has already been a uptick in the number of people killed.

• A 21-year-old St. Cloud man died this morning after the car he was a passenger in lost control, slid sideways and hit a tree. The accident happened at about 2:12 a.m. at the intersection of Cooper Avenue and 20th Avenue North.
• An 84-year-old passenger in a vehicle was killed on Minnesota Highway 25 just north of Morrison County Road 26 when the vehicle went off the road, hit a field approach and rolled.
• A 70-year-old woman died Friday evening when her vehicle was broadsided by a pickup truck near Hayfield, Minn. She was driving south on Hwy. 56 about 6:40 p.m. when her car collided with a pickup truck going west on County Road 4 southwest of Rochester. The pickup driver is reported to have been drinking.

The St Cloud incident is interesting because it makes you wonder how fast the vehicle was traveling to leave the road in the area that this happened?:

Saturday added three more Deaths to the number:

• Saturday afternoon, a Harley rider and his passenger were killed in Eden Valley when their bike was rear ended by a driver that has been detained because of claims that alcohol was involved.
• Earlier in the day, a 56-year-old woman was killed when her car traveling northbound on Lexington, crossed over the median, and hit a dump truck in Ham Lake. The head on collision took place at the intersection of 134th Street and Lexington Avenue.

Sorrow for the family and friends of all three people that were killed goes out.

It will be important to figure out why there is another cluster of weekend road deaths, What are the factors that have created these tragedies? Clearly, we do see the factors of speed, alcohol, and rural roads.

As with any death in a Minnesota motor vehicle collision, there are many issues that will need to be reviewed. My partner, Joe Crumley, addressed this topic in an article for the Minnesota Lawyers Trial magazine. I was also interviewed on the same topic.