The Daily Southerner, Tarboro, NC

Local News

November 13, 2009

Traffic accident claims man, 83

Other wrecks weather-related

T. J. ROYAL

An 83-year-old Tarboro man died Thursday after a traffic accident, when police said he pulled out in front of an oncoming vehicle at the Speight Avenue and Western Boulevard intersection.

Three other weather-related wrecks occurred today and Thursday, with the N.C. Highway Patrol saying that no life-threatening injuries occurred in them.

James Earl Gooch, 83, of Apt. B5 Georgetown Apartments in Tarboro, was pronounced dead at Heritage Hospital, after Tarboro Lt. Keith Hale said he sustained head trauma in the Tarboro accident. The accident was reported to police at 5:09 p.m.

Hale said that Gooch was attempting to make a left-hand turn onto Western Boulevard from Speight Avenue. There was "no time" for Michael David Turner, 22, of Pinetops to react to Gooch's action, Hale added.

The lieutenant said Turner's 2002 Toyota Tundra truck hit Gooch's 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee in the driver's side door. Hale added that weather was not a contributing factor in the accident, that Gooch "just didn't see" the oncoming truck.

Gooch is the eighth traffic fatality to occur in Edgecombe County in 2009.

Highway Patrol 1st. Sgt. Martin Jones said that two single-car accidents happened within an hour of each other Thursday morning on U.S. 64, east of Tarboro. Another personal injury wreck was reported at 4:29 a.m. today on U.S. 258, near the N.C. 42/43 intersection.

The first U.S. 64 accident was reported around 6 a.m., near mile marker 495. The other was reported at 7 a.m., near mile marker 491.

Jones said that both of those accidents Thursday happened when the drivers were "likely driving a little too fast" for the rainy weather, and collided with the wire barrier within the highway's median.

He did not have information on the people involved in the three weather-related accidents, because the reports had not been approved by the N.C. Department of Motor Vehicles.

The sergeant added that most of the weather-related accidents on U.S. 64 in Edgecombe County now occur between mile marker 483 and the Martin County line, since the repaving project between Tarboro and Nash County has been performed.

He added that the repaving project is not expected to continue through to the Martin County line, and that he would compile accident data to show a need for it to be completed.

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