According to local media reports in Greenville SC, a March 17, 2016, wrong way driving accident seriously injures a motorcyclist. This wrong way driving accident occurred in the early morning hours at 6:30 am on Pete Hollis Boulevard and Buncombe Road in Greenville SC.

Police who investigated the accident commented to local media that a Chevrolet SUV was going the wrong way when it hit the motorcycle. The motorcyclist was then separated from the motorcycle and slammed into the pavement. The motorcyclist was taken emergently to the Emergency Room in critical condition.

From reading media reports of the accident, it does not state exactly the cause of the wrong way driving in the accident that seriously injured a motorcyclist.

Wrong way driving occurs more frequently than you would think and there are a number of reasons why it occurs. At the top of the list is simply a driver failing to pay attention and failing to know the proper lane to be in. The driver’s failing to pay attention could be caused by fatigue, impairment, or confusion. Wrong way driving usually occurs during early morning or late night driving. And its at these times that fatigue, impairment, and confusion are most likely to be present.

Because wrong way driving occurs fairly frequently, and because it causes severe injuries and fatalities, highway safety engineering organizations have tried to take steps at a macro level to prevent wrong way driving. One preventative measure that highway safety organizations have encouraged is conspicious signage on roads and intersections where wrong way driving is likely to occur. Large signs can direct motorists in the proper direction to drive. And large conspicious signs have proven effective at preventing wrong way driving accidents from occurring.

One location where wrong way driving occurs is on interstates and highways. Highway departments across the country have attempted to prevent such fatal accidents by placing large signs on entrance and exit ramps to inform sleepy, confused, or impaired drivers that they are traveling in the wrong direction and to stop and turn around.

So we have seen it happen in our local community of Greenville, SC: a wrong way driving accident seriously injures motorcyclist. The headlines grab our attention; but when we peel the layers off the situation to try and understand what happened and what could have caused such a seemingly preventable accident its easy to see why. A driver who travels the wrong way on a road is clearly negligent and careless. From a legal standpoint, that’s the end of the discussion. However, from a safety standpoint, there are ways that we can try to prevent such accident from occurring-but those ways are not guaranteed to always work. A driver who travels on the wrong way and in the wrong lane must be held accountable for his decisions and his choices that caused the serious injuries to occur. A driver should never operate a vehicle when tired, fatigued, or impaired.