A driver was watching a football game on a smartphone when he rear-ended a motorcycle, killing the rider, on Interstate 81 in Dickinson Township in October, according to State Police at Carlisle.
Kevin Markay Souriyavong, 34, of Chambersburg, was distracted by a Pittsburgh Steelers football game he was watching on his smartphone while driving a tractor-trailer along I-81 south around 4:20 a.m. Oct. 17 when he struck the motorcyclist, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed by State Police.
The motorcyclist, John Thomas Baum Jr., 56, of Walnut Bottom, was killed in the crash, according to police.
Souriyavong told police he was in the right lane on his way to deliver diapers to a local hub in Shippensburg when he saw Baum pass him near mile marker 47. He saw the motorcycle ahead of him right before the crash near mile marker 44, police said.
He told police that he did not realize Baum was as close as he was and admitted to being distracted, according to police.
Dash cam footage from inside Souriyavong’s truck showed him frequently turning his head to the right to look at something and the sound of a football game could be heard on the audio, police said.
Police said they were able to identify the football game in part because the crash occurred during a major play in the first quarter, which can be heard in the dash cam audio.
According to the affidavit, Souriyavong sent text messages while he was driving, but several hours before the crash, he was placing bets on the Steelers and several other teams.
Souriyavong is charged with felony homicide by vehicle and multiple traffic violations, including reckless driving and texting while driving, according to court records.
He was arraigned Monday by Magisterial District Judge Susan Day and released on unsecured bail, court records show.
Souriyavong is scheduled to appear in front of Day at 10 a.m. July 30 for a preliminary hearing.
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John Baum with his blue "trike."
John T. Baum overcame birth defects, beat liver cancer and survived a liver transplant.
After a lifetime of medical struggles, he was enjoying a new lease on life in recent years.
His favorite thing to do was ride his motorcycle. That's where he felt most free. His pain and medical history would disappear in his rear-view mirror as he rode for hours and hours.
Last October, he took his sister out for dinner for her birthday. It was 77 degrees that day, nice enough for one more motorcycle ride that season.
But Baum, 56, of Walnut Bottom, never made it home alive.
As he drove his sister home in Cumberland County, a distracted truck driver on Interstate 81 hit the back of his motorcycle, flinging Baum and his sister Lori Radnor onto the asphalt.
Baum, who was wearing a helmet, died from his injuries.
Radnor landed on her chin and suffered a neck injury, and broken bones in her foot, pelvis and ribs.
Baum was among 26 fatal crash victims last year in Cumberland County.
His death illustrates the tragic fact that anyone on the road could become a fatality victim under the right, or perhaps wrong, circumstances.
"Motor vehicle accidents can happen to anybody at any time," said Cumberland County Coroner Charley Hall, who noted deaths from car crashes in his county far outnumber homicides.
In Dauphin County, fatal crashes killed nearly twice as many victims as homicides yet deaths on the roads don't always command the same public attention.
Because of the incredible risks facing anyone who sets foot or tire on the road, PennDOT officials closely track crash data.
Each year, PennDOT releases detailed spreadsheets showing the major causes of all crashes, including statistics focused solely on crashes that resulted in deaths.
The statewide data show fatal crashes fell to an all-time low last year, and four of six local counties also saw declines.
But Dauphin County was the local outlier that recorded a notable increase in vehicle deaths last year. The county recorded the most deaths since 2010. We'll look more at each county's statistics later.
PennDOT officials analyze the data collected from police departments statewide for clusters that could indicate engineering problems with roadways, or the necessity for enforcement or driver education.
The majority of fatal crashes are due to driver behavior, according to Fritzi Schreffler, a PennDOT spokeswoman.
"The majority of crashes are due to choices drivers make behind the wheel," she said. "You could go your whole life and have nothing bad happen, and then you could pull out of a parking lot and get T-boned."
The Oct. 16 crash that killed Baum involved three factors that were among the trends from Cumberland County last year.
The county saw slight increases in distracted driving, motorcycle rider deaths and crashes involving heavy trucks.
Last year's deaths included six motorcycle fatalities, the most since 2005.
Cumberland County logged 26 total fatalities last year, which represented a slight decline from 2016, but a large boost compared to 2015.
Thirteen crashes last year were attributed to drinking drivers or impaired drivers, six to speeding, three to distracted driving and two to aggressive driving.
In Baum's case, he was traveling south on Interstate 81 near mile marker 44 about 3 a.m. when the tractor trailer's bumper hit the back of Baum's Harley Sportster 1200.
The police report said the 33-year-old driver from Chambersburg was "distracted."
But details about what exactly served as the distraction have not been revealed as the District Attorney's office is still reviewing the case.
Baum's family members, meanwhile, have retained attorney Matthew S. Crosby for possible civil action so they also declined to discuss details of the crash. But they shared details of Baum's life, which included a love for collecting patches and pins, attending family gatherings, and all-things motorcycle.
He doted on his nieces and nephews and took them for rides on his "trike," which he bought after his liver transplant in 2012. The three-wheeled motorcycle was one of three motorcycles he owned.
Baum's three sisters described him as "one-of-a-kind," a very smart character with an exceptional memory and knack for math.
He enjoyed jokes and pranks and even took the fall for a 5-year-old niece who broke his mother's Tiffany-style lamp during a pillow fight.
It was Baum, after all, who had started tossing the pillow at the girl in the first place, his sister Lisa Grabb said.
"John told the story that he had accidentally knocked the lamp off the stand," Grabb said. "He didn't want Amy to get into trouble for throwing the lethal blow."
Grabb remembers the last time she talked to her brother. He dialed her accidentally, while taking a break from a motorcycle ride.
"He was trying to reach someone in his contacts, and called me instead," she said. "He laughed about it. So I asked him how he was doing, and he said great! He was riding the Ridge Road on his way to Mount Holly...We didn't talk long because he was on the bike. We said, 'I love you' to each other, and then good-bye."
She didn't know at the time the misdial would turn out to be so significant, the final time she heard Baum's voice.
Crash in Palmer Township
In many fatal crashes, the causes aren't known or can't be proven, and some crashes involve multiple factors but only the most prominent is counted in police reports.
For that reason, "distracted driving is something I would consider to be grossly underreported," in police and PennDOT's statistics, Schreffler said. "How often is someone going to say to an officer, 'Yes, I was on my cell phone.'"
Police have difficulty cracking down on texting behind the wheel because state law allows phones to be in driver's hands to dial calls and use map applications. An officer who sees a phone in a driver's hand then must be able to prove the use didn't fall under one of the allowable exclusions.
While some local municipalities have launched efforts with officers looking for texting while driving, such efforts are labor-intensive. It takes multiple officers to drive plain vehicles with a passenger to observe and other officers in marked vehicles to pull over offenders.
Proving texting after crashes also can be difficult. Police must obtain search warrants for phones. A good defense attorney often can then argue with the time stamps of text messages and whether the evidence can pinpoint the exact seconds preceding the crash.
Dauphin County bucked the statewide downward trend with an increase in six deaths for a total of 36 fatalities last year.
Twelve deaths were attributed to drivers drinking or impaired driving and six to speeders, with just one chalked up to a distracted driver.
Crashes involving heavy trucks increased to seven, from four the prior year, and aggressive drivers caused fatal crashes in six cases, which was up from two the prior year.
Four pedestrians were killed, including Dorena Archer, a 61-year-old disabled Harrisburg woman who was struck and killed while walking home in December near Fifth and Maclay streets, just feet from her home.
The pedestrian deaths represented a decline from 2016 when six pedestrians were killed. The highest number of pedestrians killed annually in the county was seven, which happened in 2002 and again in 2012.
When last year's statistics are broken down by age, drivers over the age of 65 accounted for six fatalities, the most of any age category.
The results were similar in Cumberland County, and other local counties.
But Schreffler said those statistics have more to do with older drivers' frailty and difficulty recovering from injuries as opposed to a reflection of their driving.
Younger drivers account for the bulk of crashes in general, but they are better able to recover medically, Schreffler said.
Dauphin County also logged two bicycle fatalities in 2017, which represented the first bicyclists killed in the county since 2012. No bicyclists were killed last year in the other five local counties.
One of the first fatal crashes of 2017 in Dauphin County occurred Jan. 20 and killed a 50-year-old man riding his bike to work in the 5000 block of Jonestown Road.
Ronald Hewitt was within eyesight of the restaurant where he worked as a bus boy when a driver turned in front of him.
Hewitt had been pedaling along the shoulder as westbound traffic was backed up on Jonestown Road when the pickup truck turned into a parking lot in front of him. The driver didn't see Hewitt passing vehicles on the right and didn't know he was there, police said.
The collision caused Hewitt's tire to hit a big pothole, which launched Hewitt off the bike. He struck his head directly against the concrete curb. He was not wearing a helmet.
"If he had landed in grass, and didn't hit his head, I think he would have survived," said Sgt. Steve Cover, of the Lower Paxton Police Department. "It was a glancing blow from the truck, but it forced him into the pothole and he went over the handlebars."
The truck driver was cited for violating the required position and method of turning statute.
The type of crash that killed Hewitt is fairly typical of crashes that involve bicyclists or pedestrians, Cover said.
"Drivers making a right-hand turn tend not to look," for pedestrians and bicyclists who might be approaching on a shoulder or sidewalk, he said.
People on foot often have the agility to be able to move out of the way, but bikes travel at faster speeds, Cover said.
"Then there's nowhere to go" he said.
That's why Cover advises drivers to always check for pedestrians and bicyclists, and for bicyclists on a shoulder to travel with the flow of traffic and stop when vehicles stop. It may take longer, but he said it's definitely safer for vulnerable bicyclists.
York County logged the most fatal pedestrian crashes last year than the county has had in at least 20 years.
Nine persons died in pedestrian crashes, up from seven in 2016. Nine other victims died in motorcycle crashes, which was an increase compared to six the prior year.
Overall, 38 victims died in crashes in York County, which represented one fewer death than in 2016. The death rate was the lowest since 2012.
Twenty-four cases cited drinking drivers or impaired drivers, which was higher than other local counties.
Four fatal crashes were caused by speeding, down from nine the prior year, and five crashes were attributed to distracted driving, the same level as 2016.
Just one crash was chalked up to aggressive driving, down from nine the prior year.
Lancaster County recorded its lowest number of vehicle fatalities in at least 20 years with 43 deaths, down one from 2016.
The county logged fewer pedestrian deaths (5) and motorcycle fatal crashes (7) compared to 2016.
The county also saw a dramatic decrease in crashes involving drivers drinking or impaired drivers. The county logged 15 compared to 26 the year prior.
There were fewer head-on crashes (five compared to 10 in 2016,), but more drivers last year struck trees. (eight compared to three in 2016.)
Three crashes were attributed to aggressive driving and two to distracted driving.
Perry County's number of fatal crashes dropped last year to eight, compared to 11 the prior two years in a row.
The victims included one pedestrian and two motorcycle riders, which represented decreases in those categories compared to 2016.
The county saw more impaired driving crashes, however, with seven, or nearly all of last year's cases linked to drivers drinking or impaired drivers.
The county had one fatal crash in that category in 2016.
No crashes were chalked up to speeding, aggressive driving or distracted driving.
Lebanon County was the only local county other than Dauphin to see an increase in fatalities last year, with 22 deaths compared to 21 the prior year.
Half of the victims were not wearing seat belts or properly restrained.
Fourteen crashes were linked to drivers drinking or impaired driving, a steep increase compared to just three the prior year.
One motorcyclist died last year, which matched the rate from 2016. Two wrecks were attributed to speeding and fewer crashes (5) involved heavy trucks.
The best way for drivers to stay safe on the roads is to take personal responsibility, Schreffler said. Speeding, aggression and impaired driving are the biggest causes of fatal wrecks, even if the statistics can't capture every instance.
Buckling up seatbelts also is proven to save lives, Schreffler said.
Statewide statistics are moving in the right direction, she said, with the fewest number of deaths reported last year since at least 1998.
PennDOT officials would like to think that their education efforts and police enforcement have helped decrease the deaths.
But still, 1,137 people died on roads in the Commonwealth last year and each death shattered the lives of their loved ones, so much work remains.
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Obituary for John Baum Jr.
John T. Baum, Jr., 56, of Walnut Bottom, departed this life on the morning of Monday, October 16, 2017.He was born on August 26, 1961, in Carlisle, the son of John T. Sr. and Beulah L. Stum Baum.
John worked in the construction industry for over twenty years as a member of the PA Heavy and Highway Constructions Workers Union. In his younger years, he worked for the Carlisle Hospital in the Maintenance Department.
John loved to ride motorcycles. He enjoyed traveling to and attending different motorcycle related events all over the area. John spent a lot of time volunteering at the Kings Kettle Food Pantry in Shippensburg and keeping in touch with friends on Facebook. John enjoyed spending time with his family. He was a four and a half year survivor of liver cancer and a liver transplant, something he was very grateful for and proud of.
In addition to his family, John is survived by his three sisters, Jessica L. (Frank) Reese of Shippensburg, Lisa J. (“Buster”) Grabb of Sheakleyville; and Lori J. Radnor of Biglerville; eighteen nieces and nephews; and three Pomeranians; Ginger, Big Boy, and Camel.
