UF Student Killed on Turnpike Returning to School from Thanksgiving
A 20-year-old architecture student killed November 27 on her way back to the University of Florida was eulogized Tuesday Night, December 6 in a celebration of her life. Friends gathered in a restaurant in Delray Beach to remember the young woman in a positive way.
Also in attendance was the passenger in the Florida car crash who told WPBF-Television that she was sleeping but when she woke up she felt the SUV drifting off the roadway before the driver overcorrected causing the Isuzu Rodeo to overturn multiple times. The passenger was seriously injured.
The 20-year-old architecture student received accolades, as the best person anyone ever knew. There will be no one like her ever again, said her family and friends to WPBF. Alcohol was not a factor in the accident, according to the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) trooper who continues to investigate the cause.
SUV Dangers
We do not know what led to the death of this popular young person. Was she wearing a seat belt or was she thrown from the vehicle? Was there another vehicle involved? Did the vehicle hit an immovable object like a tree?
Farah & Farah’s Florida SUV rollover attorneys understand that the government is proposing stronger roof standards which would represent a significant safety improvement for the SUV which is more likely to roll because of its high center of gravity. Consumer Reports reminds us that rollover accidents occur in about three percent of crashes but have a 33 percent death rate from serious head and spinal cord injuries. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports more than 60 percent of the fatalities that occur on the nation’s roadways come from SUVs.
A revised roof crush standard would make a roof able to withstand three times the weight of the vehicle so that the roof does not crush into the driver’s head during a rollover. That safer standard will be phased in for the 2012 model years for cars and SUVs and should be in all new vehicles by 2017.
Consumer Reports believes the standard should be four times the vehicle’s weight, not three times, and that vehicles over 6,000 pounds should also have to meet the standard, which presently do not.
Source: http://www.wpbf.com/news/29941430/detail.html; http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/car-safety/car-safety-reviews/roofcrush-standards-1005/overview/index.htm; http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/rulings/RoofCrushNotice/216NPRM-to-FR.html
