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Three adults and three children were hospitalized after their Jeep utility vehicle flipped multiple times off a highway in Jacksonville. According to the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP), the accident occurred when the driver of the vehicle, Patrick Gould, was merging from the westbound lanes of Interstate 10 toward the northbound on-ramp on Interstate 295. The FHP said that Gould, 41, lost control of the vehicle. The vehicle hit a tree and rolled over several times before coming to a stop on its roof. Gould and a four-year-old boy sustained serious injuries and were taken to Shands Jacksonville for treatment along with 25-year-old Joseph Henderson, who sustained minor injuries. Other passengers including Shawn Henderson, 28, and two girls ages 6 and 12 sustained minor injuries and were taken to Baptist Medical Center for treatment. At least two of the passengers involved in the accident were not wearing seat belts, said the FHP.
The deadliest risk facing Jacksonville’s SUV, minivan and truck owners is a rollover accident. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there are approximately 280,000 rollover accidents and 10,000 fatalities reported each year. The majority of rollover accidents are directly related to a vehicle’s stability in turns. The stability depends on the correlation between the center of gravity and the track width, which is the distance between the left and right wheels. A vehicle can become unstable during fast turns and a sharp change of direction when there is a high center of gravity and a narrow track. This problem is most common in a four-wheel-drive pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles because they have a higher ground clearance for off-road driving.
For more information on this topic, see Jacksonville 4-year-old critically injured after jeep rolls of interchange of interstates 10 and 295.