Basin Briefs

| December 9, 2019 10:32 AM

MOSES LAKE — Elks Lodge No. 1930 is inviting anyone who wants to come to a community Christmas dinner Dec. 18. Dinner will be served from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the lodge, 814 N. Stratford Rd.

Dinner is free. The meal will be prepared and served by volunteers from the Elks and from First Choice Employment Services.

MOSES LAKE — A 75-year-old Moses Lake man is dead and three teenagers injured due to a head-on collision Friday afternoon near Moses Lake.

Max Taylor, 75, was driving a 2013 Dodge Avenger east on Road 7 Northeast west of Road K Northeast when he collided in the westbound lane with a 2008 Ford F-150 driven by a 16-year-old Moses Lake girl, according to the Grant County Sheriff’s Office.

Taylor later died at Samaritan Healthcare. The driver of the Ford and her two juvenile passengers were injured and transported to Samaritan Healthcare.

Drugs and alcohol are not believed to be a factor, and law enforcement believes Taylor suffered a medical emergency which caused him to swerve into the opposite lane, the sheriff’s office shared in a social media post Saturday.

Both drivers and one of the passengers were wearing seatbelts at the time of the collision. The Grant County Sheriff’s Office Motor Traffic Unit was still investigating the collision by Sunday’s deadline.

GRANT COUNTY — In Grant County, traffic accidents that ended with serious injuries or fatalities were more likely to involve distracted driving than in almost any other county in the state, according to data collected by the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.

The data, which tracks from 2015-2017, showed 73 out of 173, or 42 percent of serious car accidents in Grant County involved distracted driving. Only Garfield County had a higher rate of distracted related accidents, a statistical fluke due to the relatively low number of serious accidents – only seven in three years.

“Our concern is that driving while texting, scrolling through social media or holding and talking on the phone will contribute to a completely preventable collision,” wrote the Grant County Sheriff’s Office on social media. “Our hope is that drivers will put electronic devices away.”