As of 8 p.m. Sunday, the total number of highway fatalities in the state of Arkansas rose to 163 with seven new deaths and a report from January that was added by the Arkansas state police Thursday.
Officials gave no explanation why the accident report on Dale Council of North Little Rock wasn’t filed until this week.
Council, 54, was struck by an unknown vehicle while he was walking in the center of the road in the 5700 block of Camp Robinson Road near Lakespur Road on January 21.
An unidentified minor died in Garland County on Tuesday from injuries suffered in a when they were struck by a 2006 Acura in Hot Springs on Tuesday.
The youth was walking along MLK Expressway/State Highway 270 when the westbound Acura struck the deceased in the left lane. The victim died at the scene at 12:50 a.m.
A Mayflower man was killed in a motorcycle crash in Pulaski County on Tuesday night as well.
Timothy A. Pray, 53, died when the 2011 Kawasaki motorcycle he was driving “failed to negotiate a curve, left the roadway and came to rest in a ditch,” the police report states.
The crash happened at Springer Road on Highway 365 in Pulaski County in dry and clear condition.
A Missouri man was killed Wednesday in a crash involving two 18-wheelers.
Aaron Barks of Jackson, Missouri, was going east on Arkansas 90 when he ran the stop sign at the intersection with Arkansas 135, hitting an 18-wheeler driven by Barry Mize of Somerville, Tennessee, the report noted.
Barks was pronounced dead at the scene by Clay County Coroner Paul Hoggard, according to the report. Mize was taken to Arkansas Methodist Medical Center in Paragould.
Kimber Ross, 29, of Plumerville was killed and an adult and child were injured following an accident around 11:30 a.m. along State Highway 95, just outside Morrilton on Wednesday
The state police reports that Ross was driving a GMC SUV northbound along the highway with a 5-year-old female passenger. In opposite lanes was a GMC pickup traveling southbound being driven by 29-year-old Walls. 52-year-old Settlemire was a passenger in the pickup.
According to the police report, Ross’s vehicle somehow drifted across the center line into oncoming traffic. This resulted in a head-on collision with Walls’s pickup.
Joseph G. Hicks Sr., 75, of the Big Creek Community near Malvern, died Saturday morning in a one vehicle accident in western Hot Spring County at a rural crossroads of U.S. Highway 70 and Bonnerdale.
Hicks was the driver of a 2016 Jeep that left the roadway on the right side and struck a tree.
Thirty-seven year-old Derek McClina of North Little Rock died in a motorcycle accident inside the Little Rock City limits in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Just after midnight on Interstate 630 at the Cumberland Overpass, the Kawasaki motorcycle McClina was operating left the road and struck a support column at the Cumberland Street overpass.
Police were still investigating the accident late Sunday afternoon.
Dennis W. McCaslin
Dennis McCaslin has been a longtime news and sports reporter for several media outlets in the Fort Smith area. He has also been a well known radio personality and play-by-play announcer for several years prior to joining InsideFortSmith.Com. He is the voice of the ArklahomaSports High School Game of the Week. E-mail: dennis@greatplainsdigital.com
