When a driver is involved in a crash, it’s important to remember what not to do, according to law enforcement. Almost always, that means not getting out of your vehicle.
“The safest place is in your car,” Sgt. Chasen Woodie with the Georgia Department of Public Safety told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “If it’s a serious wreck or you can’t move, we don’t want you to get out of your car.”
State law does require drivers to move vehicles out of the way of others if the crash is minor, like a fender-bender, Woodie noted. But once you’re on the side of the road, stay there. Doing otherwise can prove deadly.
Just hours into the new year, 43-year-old Melody Coburn was killed as she spoke to a tow truck driver who was loading up her disabled car on I-20, according to South Fulton police. The impact threw Coburn off the overpass.
Coburn’s aunt, Victoria Ann Woodson Kingston, told Channel 2 Action News she and her husband went to pick her niece up after her car became disabled.
“When I saw it happen, the first thing I did was jump out (of) the car and scream for her to see where she was,” Kingston recalled.
In a September crash in Cobb County, a woman was struck and killed while trying to help another driver who had been in a crash, according to police.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
Sarah Bolt, 38, of Monroe simply wanted to help others, her family said after the crash.
“Sarah had a very strong moral compass, very strong, and she would do what was right,” her aunt, Shannon Bullough Smith, told The AJC. “You see somebody who needs help, you help them, and that was what she did.”
For those drivers who must get out of their vehicles, look for the safest spot around, such as nearby woods, Woodie said. Other drivers may not see a pedestrian on the roadway until it’s too late to stop.
“Your car is the safest place,” he said.
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