A family in Riverview, Florida is mourning the loss this week of their three-year-old girl who was killed in a car-pedestrian accident near their home on Aug. 22.
The media reported that the mother had walked their eight-year-old son to the bus stop. She was walking home with her little girl, a dog and a family friend. The group was near an intersection in their subdivision when the girl was hit by a Dodge pickup truck driven by a 33-year-old male.
The driver of the truck told the police that he looked to the right and saw the women and dog walking but he did not see the young girl. He told them that he heard an impact and stopped to see what it was. It was at that moment he saw he had hit the girl.
However, the mother told the police that the driver was on the wrong side of the road when he hit her daughter. She said that the girl had crossed the street and was only a few feet in front of her. The mother added that the girl was two feet from the sidewalk in front of a house. At that moment, the truck appeared and was in the wrong lane, she claimed.
The child was taken to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead. It is not known yet if the driver will face charges.
Our View
Our hearts go out to the parents of this little girl who died in this terrible car accident. According to the NHTSA, 5376 pedestrians died in car accidents in 2015. Pedestrians are routinely over-represented in car accidents, but it is not entirely clear why this is the case. There also were 800 bicycle deaths in 2015.
There is still a great deal of investigating to be done in the above accident. It is clear that the driver of the truck did not see the little girl for some reason. He could have been distracted by something. The claim that he was driving on the wrong side of the road suggests that he was either distracted or impaired for some reason.
Whether or not the driver is eventually charged in this crash, the family still has the option to file a wrongful death lawsuit to compensate them for their devastating loss. When it can be proven that the driver was negligent in a way that caused another person’s death, the beneficiaries could be entitled to major financial compensation for their pain and suffering.
An experienced personal injury attorney with dual licensure in Virginia and North Carolina, Eric Washburn received a B.B.A. in Finance from James Madison University—initially worked in the information technology field before obtaining his law degree from Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan. Once an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney in Danville, Va., Eric has been recognized by Super Lawyers Magazine as a “Rising Star” Super Lawyer in Virginia since 2014.
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