Coby Collums Killed in Single-Vehicle Accident in Deaf Smith County, TX

Deaf Smith County, TX — December 21, 2023, Coby Collums was killed following a single-vehicle car accident at around 11:25 p.m. on U.S. Highway 60.

Authorities said that the crash occurred near U.S. 60 mile marker 284 off the Highway DD intersection, northeast of Hereford.

According to current information, 24-year-old Coby Lane Collums was in a Chevy Silverado pickup going eastbound on the highway. For reasons which cannot be confirmed right now, the Silverado left its lane and ended up careening across the median. The vehicle then crossed westbound lanes, went off-road, and flipped over.

During the rollover, Collums was apparently ejected from the vehicle and fatally injured. There were no other occupants reports, and the cause of the crash is still under investigation at this time.

Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman

To be clear up front, I don’t know anything more about this crash than what authorities have told the public. But there are some details which stand out to me because I’ve had situations in the past where authorities mishandled complex areas of a crash reconstruction, and it took independent efforts to correct the record.

For example, I’ve seen police say that the victim here wasn’t using a seatbelt. How do they know that? Did they find clear evidence to support that claim, or were they just jumping to conclusions? Well, in a case our firm handled a while back, it turned out authorities were doing the latter.

Authorities in that case just figured ejection is usually the result of someone not wearing their seatbelt. Most of the time, they’d be right, but jumping to that conclusion without a proper investigation led to them missing a major defect. We had an independent accident reconstructionist look into things, and they found out the seatbelt’s pretensioner failed. That meant the seatbelt remained loose during the crash when it should have locked. Despite the victim doing everything right, the driver fell victim to circumstances completely beyond their control.

Again, I can’t say if anything like that happened here, but officers don’t always have the time, tools, or experience to ensure intricate details like that get the attention they need. That’s just not good enough.