MURFREESBORO – An Aulander woman became Hertford County’s first traffic fatality of 2014 near here early Monday afternoon.

The North Carolina Highway Patrol reported that 52-year-old Doristene Vinson Jenkins of Dunning Road died as a result of her vehicle being struck broadside by an 18-wheeler on the eastern end of the Murfreesboro Bypass at its intersection with US 158 Business.

NCHP Trooper Jason Jones, who investigated the accident, said Jenkins was operating a 2007 Chevrolet passenger car east on US 158 Business. She apparently failed to stop at the intersection’s stop sign and entered the lane of travel of the tractor-trailer. That rig, headed west on the bypass, was a 2007 Peterbilt operated by 63-year-old William Michael Langford of Blocton, Alabama and owned by Trinity Logistics Group Inc. of Dallas, TX.

Jones said Langford was not injured in the crash.  Langford’s rig struck the car in the driver’s side door, claiming Jenkins’ life on impact, Jones said.

No charges were filed.

Ironically, on the morning of the accident, NCDOT removed the traffic signal (stop light) at that intersection. An official with the NCDOT office in Ahoskie said the traffic signal and poles needed to be temporarily removed as part of the ongoing widening project of US 158 from that particular intersection east towards Winton. In its place, DOT placed several signs, to include electronic message boards, to warn motorists of the changes to that intersection.

Jones verified that fact, saying the intersection, to include US 158 Business, was properly marked with stop ahead and stop signs as well as electronic boards carrying the messages of “new traffic pattern” and “stop ahead.”

The traffic fatality was the seventh of 2014 in the NCHP’s Troop A/District II area that includes Bertie, Gates and Hertford counties.