Officials with the Iowa State
patrol say that a recent car accident in Afton, Iowa left two people
dead and two others seriously injured. The wreck happened just after 5 p.m.
last Thursday near the intersection of Highways 169 and 34. Police say that the
accident occurred because of one driver’s failure to yield at a stop sign.
According to authorities, the
crash happened when a Chrysler Sebring driven by 19-year-old Sierra Peddycoart
pulled away from a stop sign on Highway 169 directly into the path of an
oncoming Chevy Tahoe. Witnesses say that Peddycoart was unable to see the Tahoe
when she pulled away from the stop sign into the other vehicle’s lane of
traffic. The driver of the Tahoe, 30-year-old Beth Kulow, saw Peddycoart’s
vehicle but was unable to come to a stop before hitting the Sebring.
Police say that the force of the
accident was intense and it resulted in the death of both Peddycoart and her
passenger. Kulow and an infant passenger were both injured in the crash, but authorities
say that the injuries were not life threatening.
So what is a failure to yield accident? A failure to yield accidents
refers to those that occur when one driver fails to yield (or give) the road to
an oncoming vehicle. This other vehicle is said to have the “right of way”
which means the driver has the legal right to be on that stretch of road at
that time and other drivers must wait for the driver to pass by before
continuing on. Some common examples of failure to yield accidents in Iowa
include those, like this one, that happen when a driver fails to remain stopped
at a stop sign until the driver with the right of way has cleared the
intersection. Accidents involving failure to yield also happen when drivers
make left turns into traffic without yielding to oncoming vehicles.
According to the U.S. Department
of Transportation, accidents caused by one driver’s failure to yield are quite
common. Of these failure to yield accidents, stop signs are often where the
collisions take place, with DOT figures calculating that accidents are 2.6
times more likely to happen at stop signs than at traffic signals. Another
instance where failure to yield accidents are especially likely to occur is
when one driver must make a left hand turn.
Failure to yield accidents are
frequently deadly and represent a leading cause of automotive death. This is
because they often involve one fast moving vehicle colliding with another much
slower moving vehicle, exerting tremendous force on the occupants of both
vehicles. Statistics indicate that every year there are between 800 to 1,000
fatal multi-vehicle failure to yield crashes across the country.
Source:
“Two
killed, two injured in southern Iowa crash,” by Regina
Zilbermints, published at DesMoinesRegister.com.
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