Speeding Driver Blows Through Red Light, Leading to Deadly Crash

There was a deadly crash at Glenlake and Kimball avenues last Thursday. A driver ran a red light and hit an SUV carrying seven people – three of them small children. Zainab Suboh, who was visiting her children before Ramadan begins, was killed. Her husband suffered multiple serious injuries. Thankfully, her children and grandchildren survived.

But this whole sounds like plotline from Grand Theft Auto: a man beats a locksmith out of his pay, and the two begin a wild goose chase down at double the speed limit (the Chicago Sun Times reports the driver was doing 65mph in a 30mph zone mere seconds before he hit Mrs. Suboh’s family) before blasting through a red light and smashing into another vehicle. The driver claims he thought he had the right of way, but there’s a reason why every single stop light in this country looks exactly the same – because even if you can’t tell the difference between red and green, you CAN tell the difference between the top light and the bottom light.

Besides – thanks to Chicago’s obsession with surveillance, there’s a video. And we can report that the police got the driver, and charged him with reckless homicide and aggravated reckless driving. Hopefully, that means Mr. Suboh’s family can get justice from both the criminal courts and the civil courts.

We all know speeding is dangerous. Drivers are doing it, anyway

Chicago is in the midst of a speeding crises. We talked recently about drag races, and we’ve been screaming about hit-and-runs for years. But as the 2021 Traffic Safety Culture Index shows, people don’t seem to care much. Per their data:

• Half of drivers perceived driving 15mph over the speed limit on a freeway to be very or extremely dangerous. More respondents felt that driving through a red light was dangerous (76%).
• Though 63% of drivers believed police would apprehend them for traveling 15mph over the speed limit on a freeway, approximately half reported having engaged in the behavior in the past 30 days before the survey.
• Less than half (45%) of the respondents supported a policy using cameras to automatically ticket drivers who drive more than 10mph over the speed limit on residential streets.

Everyone knows speeding is dangerous, and half of them are doing it anyway. The question is why are we like this? Why do drivers – in Chicago, in Illinois, in literally every state in this country – acknowledge the dangers of speeding and then decide, “Meh – I’mma risk it”?

We have some theories.

First, people don’t always get caught. You’re doing 50 in a 40 and there are no other cars around, and no speed cameras? The chances are good you don’t get caught. So you keep doing it more and more, and next thing you know, speeding is the norm.

Second, most people don’t get hurt. In 2021, 1,341 people died in traffic accidents in Illinois. If speeding accounts for about 30% of all fatal crashes, that means that roughly 400 people died in speeding accidents in all of Illinois in 2021. More than 12.67 million people live in Illinois; what are the chances you’ll be one of the 400?

(Except, of course, this isn’t how math works. There were 295,604 crashes in Illinois in 2021, and 156,289 of them were in Cook County; 423 of those were fatal. So really, the chances you’ll be injured, if not killed, by a speeding driver in Chicago are pretty high.)

Third – and perhaps most importantly – people don’t necessarily realize just how bad they can be hurt by a speeding driver. They tend to think about what happened to Mrs. Suboh as the exception, not the rule. After all, most people don’t die in car accidents, right? Most people don’t even get injured.

Except the big numbers don’t explain the risk. Here’s how the Illinois Department of Transportation breaks down the averages in 2021:

• There were about 810 accidents per day
• More than three people died per day in a traffic accident
• More than nine people were injured per hour

Just how serious are injuries from speeding accidents?

As serious as can be. And that’s because of the force and energy that are transferred during a collision.

(Are we really going to talk about physics after all that math? Yes, we are – but only a little. You can find a more in-depth explanation here.)

Simply put, when two objects collide at faster speeds, the impact is greater. Think about it: if someone slowly pats your face, it’s affectionate. If they whip their hand around and smack you, it hurts! So the faster the object is moving, the more power behind it. Makes sense, right?

Now, make those two objects weigh a couple tons a piece, and smash them together at 50mph – the approximate speed the driver was going when he crashed into Mrs. Suboh’s car. That’s a lot of kinetic energy being spread out among the two vehicles. While cars’ frames are designed to bear the brunt of that energy AND the force of the impact, how the cars hit is important. Remember: most vehicles have crumple zones in the front and back, but not in the side, so a T-bone accident can transfer a lot of energy and force to passengers in a way that their vehicles simply aren’t equipped to handle.

All of this is to say that when a speeding driver hits you, the injuries can be severe. Speeding accidents account for brain trauma, spinal cord damage, multiple broken bones, organ damage and limb loss. If you’re not wearing a seat belt, it can cause you to break through glass and crash into pavement. It can also kill.

Any car accident is dangerous, whether you’re doing 10mph or 60mph. A low-speed impact can still cause tissue and nerve damage, and can still break bones or cause head trauma. But a speeding accident is far more likely to cause severe or fatal injuries. And if can do all of this to people riding in another vehicle, imagine how much worse it is for a pedestrian or cyclist.

Speeding really is a deadly activity. If you manage to survive the wreck, you’re going to need a lot of help. That’s where Gainsberg Injury and Accident Lawyers comes in. Our Chicago car accident attorneys can help you. Give us a call or fill out our contact form to schedule your free consultation today.