Head-on crash on causeway leaves 1 dead
Tue, Feb 26, 2008
By EMILY STRANGERThe Brunswick NewsA 30-year-old St. Simons Island man became the third person to die from a head-on collision on the F.J. Torras Causeway within two months when his vehicle crossed the center line and collided with an oncoming truck Monday afternoon. Joshua Franklin was pronounced dead at 6:42 p.m. in the emergency room of the Brunswick hospital of Southeast Georgia Health System, Glynn County Coroner Jimmy Durden said.The accident occurred around 3:30 p.m. west of the Back River Bridge. Franklin was driving westbound in a silver Mazda 3 compact car when his vehicle crossed the center line of the causeway, striking a Coastal Disposal truck. The driver of the truck, Kelly Strickland of Waynesville, also was rushed to the Brunswick hospital's emergency room. She reportedly sustained a broken arm, a broken leg and multiple bruises.The vehicle she was driving was a medium-sized truck, police said.The accident was witnessed by an off-duty county police officer, who was behind the Mazda, said Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering."The officer said the driver didn't brake, didn't steer out of the way or make any other kind of defensive maneuver," Doering said. "There's a curve in the road right there. When the driver hit the curve, he didn't follow it. He just kept going straight."He drove smoothly, passing right across the center line."Doering said police are investigating several different possibilities. They found an open cell phone on the floorboard of the passenger side and a laptop computer on the seat."It could mean he was distracted, but at this point we don't know," Doering said. "We will get a court order to look at the phone records to see if he was on the phone around the time that the accident happened."Doering said police also are investigating whether the man may have suffered from a medical condition.On Dec. 26, 2007, Sigourney Maurer, 19, and Timothy Holyfield, 43, were both killed when Holyfield's Ford Ranger crossed the center line and struck Maurer. Both were declared dead at the scene.Bob Coleman, whose son was killed in a head-on collision in the same spot as Monday's accident in 1996, says the list of victims will continue to grow until the state Department of Transportation does something to separate the opposing sides of traffic.The state widened the median area, but there is no wall or barrier down the middle to prevent vehicles from crossing into the path of an oncoming car.Coleman has been leading an initiative to install concrete barriers down the center of the causeway.He said the accident is another example of the need for a barrier."I think the people in both the city and the county need to pick up the phone and take a minute to call and voice their opinion about this thing," he said. "All the fatalities seem to happen in that exact same spot."If you were heading west at 3:30 p.m. and had the sun dead in your eyes and you're elevated to start with coming off that bridge, it wouldn't be hard to drive straight through that curve in the road."Nine people have died in accidents on the causeway since 2004.
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