Court documents reveal new details about what happened inside a Lyft vehicle moments before the driver allegedly kicked passengers out on a busy highway, where one of those passengers was struck and killed by a passing car.
It was around 1:44 a.m. on July 24 of last year when 43-year old Sidney Wolf of Clarksburg, Maryland, died on a dark stretch of the Route 1 Coastal Highway in Delaware.
He and five other passengers in a Lyft were on a trip from Dewey Beach to Bethany Beach. They were told to get out of the vehicle after an argument they had with the driver, according to court documents.
“The six of them saw that in the driver’s SUV, there was a 5-year-old unrestrained child in the wayback. They asked the driver, who was the mother of the child, why the child was there and why the child was unrestrained,” Shanin Specter, an attorney for Wolf’s survivors in a civil lawsuit against Lyft, said.
The case alleges that the driver became angry at being asked about the child and ordered the passengers out of the SUV.
According to the investigation, the driver stopped in the far left travel lane, and the rear driver’s side door–the one closest to the shoulder–was not working, so they had to use the right rear door.
“Which of course spilled directly into oncoming traffic,” Specter said. “Mr. Wolf was the first person out of the vehicle, and he was struck immediately by a passing motorist and was killed.”
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The driver that struck Wolf stayed on the scene, but investigators say the Lyft driver left and was located later.
“We have filed an action against the driver and against Lyft, for Lyft’s failure to properly supervise their driver, failure to properly train their driver and also for their responsibility as the employer of the Lyft driver,” Specter said.
The lawsuit seeks monetary compensation for Wolf’s survivors and some changes from Lyft.
“We are looking to have Lyft reform themselves with respect to their hiring, training and supervision of their drivers, because this type of thing should never be allowed to happen,” the family’s attorney went on to say.
As of now, no charges have been leveled against the Lyft driver. The driver of the car that struck Wolf was not charged.
News4 is waiting for a response from Lyft about the filing. According to the company’s website, vehicles must have between five to eight working seatbelts and four doors.
