Accident on U.S. 40 claims life of Clayton woman

Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Fatal accident scene Tuesday night on U.S. 40 west of Plainfield.

BELLEVILLE -- A Hendricks County woman was fatally injured in a one-vehicle accident on U.S. 40 west of Plainfield, the Hendricks County Sheriff's Department reported.

At approximately 9:15 a.m. Tuesday, Hendricks County Sheriff's deputies received a call of a motor vehicle crash in the 3800 block of East U.S. 40. Upon arrival, deputies located the 2004 Pontiac van inverted in the eastbound lanes of the highway.

The female driver, later identified as Laura Thomas, 54, of Clayton, had been ejected from the vehicle and was pronounced dead at the scene.

The preliminary investigation indicates Thomas had been traveling westbound on U.S. 40 when her vehicle went into the grass median before striking a culvert.

At the point the vehicle struck the culvert, the vehicle rolled and rotated before coming to rest on its top in the eastbound lanes.

The incident was a single-vehicle accident and no one else was inside the vehicle at the time of the crash, authorities said.

The precise reason for the vehicle traveling off the roadway is still under investigation, however, alcohol is not suspected as a contributing factor to the crash, police said.

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  • She could have had a heart attack or a stroke while driving.

    -- Posted by Queen53 on Tue, Apr 23, 2019, at 5:47 PM
  • I am not saying what caused this accident because I don't know. I am only pointing to a possible cause. Monday I was traveling on US 40 and there was a lady in a red Pontiac traveling at a high rate of speed and she was drifting first to the left and then to the right, when she was passing me she almost hit the side of my truck- her eyes were turned down and she was looking at her cell phone. If a accident is caused by driving impaired it is quickly reported but if its is due to cell phone use you don't hear much about it. AGAIN I DON"T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO CAUSE THIS ACCIDENT but I wanted to make people aware - put down the phone when behind the wheel- here are some stats. The National Safety Council reports that cell phone use while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes each year.

    Nearly 390,000 injuries occur each year from accidents caused by texting while driving.

    1 out of every 4 car accidents in the United States is caused by texting and driving.

    Texting while driving is 6x more likely to cause an accident than driving drunk.

    Answering a text takes away your attention for about five seconds. Traveling at 55 mph, that's enough time to travel the length of a football field.

    Texting while driving causes a 400 percent increase in time spent with eyes off the road.

    Of all cell phone related tasks, texting is by far the most dangerous activity.

    -- Posted by Workingthesoil on Wed, Apr 24, 2019, at 7:41 AM
  • *

    BHS1967 - Be careful. You will be finger-wagged.

    I am always an advocate of checking their phone (which doesn't seem to be standard procedure) to see if that was the direct cause, proximate cause, or contributing factor when there are serious incidents like this... especially where there is a fair percentage of probability.

    And I have had lots of fingers wagged at me b/c of it.

    Its possible that she had a medical episode of some sort. I don't know.

    But what I do know is that I drive an hour to work every day (and an hour home) and will see at least 10-15 people on their phones TEXTING. Every day. Driving distracted. Putting everyone in danger and inconveniencing other drivers by not paying attention.

    -- Posted by dreadpirateroberts on Wed, Apr 24, 2019, at 9:11 AM
  • I'm sorry for the loss her family and friends are experiencing right now.

    -- Posted by ladycoltsfan on Fri, Apr 26, 2019, at 2:19 PM
  • She wasn’t texting.

    She fell asleep.. this was my moms best friend. Have respect. Thanks.

    -- Posted by honeyswoodcreations on Mon, Apr 29, 2019, at 9:44 AM
  • *

    Honeyswoodcreations -

    No one was being disrespectful. We were discussing the POSSIBILITY of the incident being attributed to texting and driving, especially in light of the known dangers and multitude of incidents that have been attributed to texting and driving.

    And how much respect would you like us to extend to a woman who put others in jeopardy for her own convenience?

    Unless she had narcolepsy (in which case she shouldn't be driving anyway), she should have known better than to drive when she was tired enough to fall asleep at the wheel.

    Driving when you are in that condition is no different than driving while intoxicated.

    -- Posted by dreadpirateroberts on Mon, Apr 29, 2019, at 12:45 PM
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