ROXOBEL – Excessive speed is reportedly the cause of the Roanoke-Chowan area’s first motor vehicle fatality of 2011.

Harry George Culver, 77, of 208 South Main Street, Roxobel, died Saturday at the scene of a single-car crash just north of his hometown on Tyler School Road (RP 1249).

According to a report filed by North Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper J.O. Walter, Culver was operating a 1997 Buick passenger car at around 12 noon. While traveling north, Culver’s vehicle went left of center at which time the driver overcorrected, causing the car to veer off the right side of the road. There it entered a field and struck a steel irrigation well pipe and came to rest.

A front seat passenger, Douglas Fraley II, 50, of 2036 East Ocean View #5, Norfolk, Va., was injured. His condition is unknown.

Trooper Walter cited exceeding the authorized speed limit (55 mph) and overcorrecting/over steering as contributing factors to the deadly accident.

The fatality was the first of the new year in the Highway Patrol’s Troop A, Division II region (Bertie, Gates and Hertford counties).