Driving conditions in Chicago can be unpredictable but with care and consideration for others on the roads, most people are able to get to where they need to go without any harm. Even when conditions seem relatively mild, dangerous accidents can happen that put people in the way of potentially life-threatening harm. Take, for example, a young woman who recently lost her life on a Chicago road when the driver of the vehicle she was riding him made poor choices about how to conduct himself behind the wheel.
The 33-year-old woman was a passenger in a vehicle driven by a 33-year-old man. The man allegedly had opiates in his system while driving the woman and himself to a concert; while traveling down Lake Shore Drive the man increased the vehicle’s rate of speed to nearly 100 miles per hour. He lost control of the vehicle, hit a road barrier and then flipped the vehicle over. The woman was thrown from the vehicle and perished as a result of the injuries she sustained in the violent ordeal.
This fatal accident may have been prevented if the driver of the vehicle had made a number of different decisions about his driving conduct. Driving with opiates in his bloodstream may have caused him to make poor choices while driving; increasing his speed likely increased his risk of losing control. It is possible that in addition to the criminal charges that the driver was charged with he may also face civil claims from the family of the young woman who died.
Wrongful death and other personal injury-based claims may provide the family of the deceased victim with remedies to be compensated by the reckless driver who caused their loved one to lose her life. His liability for her lost life offers some survivors in her family with the opportunity to receive financial damages for sustaining such a tragedy; though a civil lawsuit cannot bring the woman back to life, it may give her loved ones help to move their lives forward in the wake of her loss.
Source: Chicago Tribune, “$350K bail for motorist charged in fatal crash on Lake Shore Drive,” Rosemary Regina Sobol, Sept. 6, 2015
