The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that motor-vehicle crashes occur intersections on a rather frequent basis. That is, while the majority of the road infrastructure is comprised of roads between the intersections, roughly 40 percent of all traffic accidents happen where two or more roads meet. Often, the negligence of one or more drivers is involved in an intersection wreck.

These types of accidents may involve highway crossings or the meeting of two residential streets. Many different factors may be involved in an intersection crash. Inattentiveness, a failure to yield, the failure to see another car or motorcycle–the list of issues may seem endless. But, even in a residential area, or other setting where a relatively low-speed accident occurs at a meeting between roads, accident victims can suffer severe injuries.

Four people were hospitalized after a wreck at a Columbia, Missouri, intersection Tuesday evening. Few details have been provided about the extent and nature of the injuries that the accident victims suffered. Authorities say that the driver of the car was trapped inside the vehicle after the wreck. Emergency responders had to extricate the driver form the crumpled car, according to KRCG 13 News.

Police say that a pickup truck struck the car broadside in the driver’s side door of the car. The accident happened Tuesday evening at the intersection of Ridgeway Avenue and Ash Street. Police say that the driver of the pickup left the vehicle behind and fled on foot from the scene of the crash.

Four people who had been traveling in the car suffered personal injuries, including two adults and two small children (a toddler and an infant). Police continue to look into the crash. Columbia police say that a 25-year-old man who displayed signs of injuries was arrested Thursday related to the alleged hit-run crash Tuesday. The Columbia Missourian reports that authorities say that the man admitted to being the driver in Tuesday’s alleged hit-run.

Source: KRCG 13 Connect Mid-Missouri, “Columbia hit-and-run sends four to hospital,” Aug. 13, 2013; The Columbia Missourian, “Man arrested in connection with accident at Ash Street and Ridgeway Avenue,” Kenton Schoen, Aug. 16, 2013