Daniel Thornton, Whitney Cunningham Killed in Fort Worth, TX, Accident
Fort Worth, TX -- March 18, 2017, Daniel Thornton and Whitney Cunningham were killed due to an accident where their motorcycle crashed off an overpass.
The Fort Worth Police Department reported that the fatal incident happened at around 6:00 p.m. at the I-20 and I-35 interchange.
Reports say that Thornton and Cunningham, who were engaged to be married, were traveling along westbound I-20 and took the transfer ramp to go to southbound I-35W. As they traveled, the vehicle somehow lost control and crashed into the side barrier of the ramp.
Both riders were ejected from the vehicle, causing them to fall off the ramp to the roadway below. As a result, both riders died at the scene.
At this time, the cause of the accident is still under investigation. It's unclear whether or not any other vehicles were involved. No additional details are currently available.
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Commentary
Whenever I see an accident like this, I know that there are some people out there who will immediately assume that the motorcyclists were at fault for the accident. The reason I know this is because it's a very common misconception that all motorcyclists are dangerous drivers. I can tell you from experience that this simply isn't true.
Our firm has represented many motorcyclists and their families over the years who were victims of factors beyond their control. Most of the time, the driver of a larger vehicle just isn't looking out for the smaller motorcycles on the roads. This leads to incidents where they turn in front of them or change lanes into them, causing a collision. Despite this, most people just think of motorcyclists as speed demon, thrill seekers who barrel down emergency lanes and weave through traffic. Those people are certainly out there, but they're nothing more than the rotten apples spoiling the bunch.
Now does this mean that the victims here didn't cause this accident? Not necessarily. It's entirely possible that they could be at fault. The issue here is that we simply don't know what happened. For all we know, an unknown vehicle ran them off the road, they hit a piece of debris, had a tire blowout, or any number of other factors. When there are so few details available about an accident, people tend to jump to conclusions and fill in the blanks with their own preconceived notions. This is what leads to people jumping on the "dangerous motorcyclists" bandwagon and blaming the victims.
We should all take care to realize there are a lot of things that can cause a fatal crash. Some of them are the drivers' faults, some of them are unpredictable and leave drivers with little to no time to react. Until a thorough investigation is done and all the facts come out, the best course of action is to reserve judgements. Common misconceptions may find their way into the discourse, but only cold, hard facts should have any bearing on the conversation. Throwing out baseless assumptions only serves to further harm those affected by the tragedy.
--Grossman Law Offices
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