SCDOT claims ‘recklessness’ by USC student hit by car in Five Points; she’s suing
The SC Department of Transportation says a University of South Carolina student hit by a car in Five Points was negligent and reckless while attempting to cross the street, in response to a lawsuit filed by the student over the design of a new crosswalk on Harden Street.
Maya Trowbridge was crossing Harden Street at a newly-installed mid-block crosswalk with a friend in October when she was struck by a car and “viciously flipped in the air,” causing fractures throughout her body, according to a lawsuit Trowbridge filed against SCDOT and the city of Columbia this April.
Trowbridge, in her lawsuit, has accused SCDOT and the city of being negligent in the design and testing of the new crosswalk.
“She was tossed like a rag doll in the air,” said Trowbridge’s attorney Drew Richardson. “Maya is an incredible young woman ... who didn’t ask for this and was trying to use these pedestrian crosswalks like she thought that she should have, and responsibly, and instead she got mowed down.”
Trowbridge spent multiple days in the hospital after suffering numerous fractures throughout her body, including a hip fracture, leading to a “grueling” recovery process and physical therapy, Richardson said. Trowbridge, who is from Pennsylvania, spent much of her sophomore Spring semester at home recovering, he added.
Meanwhile, the city and SCDOT are asking a judge to dismiss the lawsuit, with SCDOT calling Trowbridge reckless and negligent.
The SCDOT, in a legal filing responding to Trowbridge’s suit, said her claims “should be barred by her own negligence and recklessness … in failing to activate the caution lights at the intersection before using the crosswalk (and) in failing to keep a proper lookout when crossing Harden Street.”
Trowbridge’s attorney rejected the argument that the USC rising junior was reckless, saying she was simply using the SCDOT-installed crosswalk built to make Harden Street safer for pedestrians.
“To call my client reckless for using the actual crosswalk that they had built seems a little far-fetched,” Richardson said.
Trowbridge and a friend entered the crosswalk Oct. 31, 2025 after one driver stopped and waved them across, but a second vehicle in the far lane continued driving through the crosswalk and hit her, the lawsuit states. The driver who hit Trowbridge briefly stopped then drove away without helping, the lawsuit says.
“If you’ve got a double lane that’s traveling in the same direction and one (vehicle) is slowing down to let someone over ... this is an invitation to cross,” Richardson said. “That creates an inherent danger in and of itself.”
The lawsuit brings into question the effectiveness of a recently completed $5 million Harden Street safety project, launched after a 2019 study found the roadway was the state’s most dangerous for pedestrians. The work included reducing lanes and adding new intended safety features like the mid-block signalized crosswalk in question. SCDOT officially marked the completion of that project in July 2025 after more than a year of construction.
Lawsuit centers on crosswalk design, testing
The new mid-block crosswalks on Harden Street include a push-button device and lights meant to signal drivers to stop. SCDOT argues that Trowbridge does not have a claim against the agency because she did not activate that device.
Richardson pushed back on that argument, saying that the device was not as clearly visible as it should have been and that the incident raises questions about what factors were evaluated or not evaluated when the crosswalk was designed and tested.
“If the intended purpose was to increase safety of the pedestrians, then the governmental entities failed at that,” Richardson said.
Among Trowbridge’s claims are that the Department of Transportation and the city of Columbia “knew or should have known … that a pedestrian-activated crosswalk system dependent on a pedestrian pressing a button – without adequate notice or a continuously active warning - creates an extremely hazardous condition for pedestrians who are unaware of or unable to activate the system.”
The lawsuit also states that drivers traveling down Harden Street “would not have anticipated that a crosswalk would have been located at an area other than [at] a vehicular intersection.”
SCDOT denied those claims in a legal filing. An attorney for the agency did respond to an inquiry from The State Newspaper by press time.
Meanwhile, the city contends that it is not responsible for Harden Street, which is a state-owned road, and is asking a judge to dismiss the claim against it, “or in the alternative,” order Trowbridge to “amend her complaint to make more definitive statements.”
To that, Richardson said “there are levels of responsibility for all the governmental entities.”
Trowbridge is demanding a jury trial against SCDOT and the city, as well as punitive and actual monetary damages.
