Chance St. Clair Killed in Motorcycle, Truck Accident in Aiken, SC
Aiken, SC -- February 9, 2023, Chance St. Clair was killed due to an accident where his motorcycle crashed with a commercial truck.
Investigators said that the crash happened at around 11:00 a.m. off the corner of Columbia Highway North and Rodgers Road.
Details are still under investigation at this time, but preliminary reports say the crash happened between Rodgers Road and May Royal Drive where 37-year-old Chance St. Claire was on a northbound motorcycle. From southbound lanes, it appears a semi-truck made a left turn, and St. Claire's motorcycle hit the side of the semi.
Due to the collision, St. Claire sustained fatal injuries. Officials did not give a specific cause of the accident, and investigations are ongoing. As such, I can't make any concrete statements about what happened here. What I can do, though, is look at the information that is currently available to the public and consider what possibilities there are. Frankly, the information I'm seeing right now leads to believe that mistakes completely beyond the victim's control led to his death. But what makes me think this is a likely possibility?
Put simply, I looked at the most up to date images I could find of the stretch of road where reports say this crash occurred. Unless something has changed since those images were produced, I don't see any kind of traffic control for north and southbound traffic along Columbia Highway N between the named cross streets. Generally speaking, then, that means a southbound vehicle turning across northbound lanes would have to yield to northbound traffic's right-of-way, and vice versa.
If that's true, and if I'm not missing something not available to me, it would appear the victim here would have had the right-of-way at the time of the crash. So why is it that a truck turned in front of him? Is there something unique about this roadway I'm missing? Were there other extenuating circumstances authorities are still looking into? Or was there some other reason a truck driver decided it was safe to turn left in front of an unsuspecting motorcyclist?
Again, it's not my place to connect these dots, especially when there could be more to the story. If any local residents out there have information that could be important to this situation, I'd welcome any and all input. As things stand right now, though, there's a whole lot of smoke for there not to be a fire. Hopefully authorities here are dedicating the time and resources to get answers for the victim's loved ones as soon as possible.
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