Driver dies when car runs off highway and into oncoming traffic, Midlands coroner says
A Midlands man was killed Tuesday when the car he was driving swerved into oncoming traffic on a major interstate, the Kershaw County Coroner’s Office said.
The two-vehicle collision temporarily blocked all of the eastbound lanes on Interstate 20 during the morning commute, according to the South Carolina Department of Transportation.
William Scott Jones Jr. was taken to an area hospital and later died, Coroner David West said.
The wreck happened at about 8:50 a.m., near Exit 87 on I-20, West said. That’s the junction with White Pond Road to Elgin.
Jones, a 25-year-old Lugoff resident, was heading west when the 2015 Infiniti sedan he was driving ran off the road and crossed the median, where it hit an eastbound vehicle, according to West.
Jones was not wearing a seat belt, West said.
The driver of the 2005 Mercedes-Benz that was hit by the Infiniti was wearing a seat belt and was taken to a Prisma Health hospital with minor injuries, according to Master Trooper David Jones of South Carolina Highway Patrol. Further information on that driver’s condition was not available.
No other injuries were reported.
There was no word on what caused the Infiniti to originally run off the interstate, but the collision is being investigated by Highway Patrol.
It took more than an hour for all of the lanes on I-20 to be reopened, and the highway was not cleared until about 11:30 a.m., according to SCDOT.
Through Tuesday morning, 769 people had died on South Carolina roads in 2021, state Department of Public Safety data shows. Of those, 513 of the victims had access to seat belts, but 255 were not wearing them, DPS reported.
At least 16 people have been killed in Kershaw County crashes in 2021, and 12 of them were not wearing seat belts, DPS reported.
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This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 3:32 PM.
