Thousands of fatal car crashes happen every year across the country and many of them are due to distracted or under the influence drivers.
Texas has some of the deadliest roads in the country but that is only a small portion of the fatal car crashes that happen every year.
A study done by MoneyGeek showed that the deadliest road in Texas from 2017 to 2019 was I-20, but that only accounted for 2 percent of fatal crashes in Texas where the number caused by drunk driving was much higher than that.
”I- 20 had 214 fatal crashes over the 3-year study period while there were 2,550 drunk driving fatal accidents,” said Doug Milnes, Head of Data and Analytics for MoneyGeek.
While conducting the study of over 3,000 roads in Texas, they kept coming across similar trend.
”A common factor among many fatal accidents, 1 in 4 actually, in Texas that is DUI related.” said Milnes.
The danger drunk drivers pose on the road is something Laura Twichell has had to live with for 18-years after losing her 12-year-old son Tyler Cranfill when their car was hit by a drunk driver.
”We went to Indiana to visit family up there and on our way home, we were hit head on by a drunk driver,” said Twichell.
The police report said it only took 2 seconds for the drunk driver to drift into their lane while driving over 90mpr, severely injuring Laura and her 10-year-old daughter and ending Tyler's life.
”They had to use the jaws of life to get Tyler and I out of the car which took them about 45 minutes,” said Twichell.
Tyler died 4 hours after the crash while Twichell and her young daughter sustained several broken bones, Twichell nearly lost her legs due to her injuries and almost missed her son's funeral.
All of that pales in comparison to the pain she still feels from his loss.
”He would have been a great father. His laughter, I hear it echo in my head. He was my only son and I miss him terribly,” said Twichell.
Bad decisions and 2 seconds is all it took to end Tylers life, and the lives of the two people in the other car, leaving so many people to live with constant physical, mental and emotional pain even 18 years later.
The number of fatal car crashes like theirs rises every year and most of them are avoidable.
