logo
Family of 5 killed in horrific, head-on car crash on Mother's Day

Family of 5 killed in horrific, head-on car crash on Mother's Day

New York Post15-05-2025

A 'close-knit' Texas family of five was killed in a fiery car crash on a Mother's Day weekend trip — when a truck slammed head-on into their pickup truck on a busy highway.
The Cerda family, including three daughters ages 18 to 26, was headed from Houston to Dallas to celebrate the holiday when a Dodge truck traveling south on Interstate 45 swerved out of its lane and struck a guardrail at around 3:15 p.m. Saturday, according to fire officials and witnesses.
The driver burst through a median and collided with the family's Ford F-150 as they headed north — causing both trucks to erupt into flames, according to the Centerville Volunteer Fire Department.
Advertisement
Veronica Cerda, 53, her husband Hermenegildo Melendez, 55, along with their daughters Denise Cerda, 26, Rebecca Cerda, 20, and Daniela Cerda, 18, died at the scene of the horrific wreck, fire officials said.
All five members of the Cerda family died in the horrific crash.
GoFundMe
'It just, it rips my heart out because I know they deserve better,' family friend Jillian De Haro told Click 2 Houston.
Advertisement
'This wasn't supposed to happen to them,' she said. 'They were a really close-knit family.'
As a plume of smoke rose from the crash site, a crowd of drivers rushed to help them.
'The fire was raging,' Mujtaba Quadri, who pulled over with his wife, told KHOU 11 News.
'There were at least seven people there, everybody actively just doing something, somebody was dictating what we should do,' he said.
Advertisement
The driver of a Dodge truck slammed into the family's truck on Interstate 45 near Houston.
Centerville Volunteer Fire Department / Facebook
Some of the good Samaritans pulled the driver of the Dodge, Toriano Fair, 42, of Dallas, from his burning truck — but weren't able to save the family, he told the station.
'Just imagine how we are feeling, like we couldn't save them,'Quadri said. 'Imagine what [Fair] is going to have to go through knowing what happened, and it's devastating.'
Fair was hospitalized in critical condition, officials said.
Advertisement
De Haro, a friend of the oldest daughter, Denise, called the circumstances of her death heartbreaking.
'She's one of those best friends that your mom always wants you to have in your life,' she said. 'I say the friendship of a lifetime.'
A relative of the family has since launched a GoFundMe page to raise money for their funerals and memorial expenses.
'They were a close-knit and loving family, known for their warmth, kindness and deep love for one another,' the fundraising page declared.
'Their sudden passing has left a deep void in the hearts of everyone who knew them, and their absence will be felt forever.'
The cause of the crash is under investigation.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Families scramble to pay for lawyers after ICE raid in Florida
Families scramble to pay for lawyers after ICE raid in Florida

Yahoo

time17 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Families scramble to pay for lawyers after ICE raid in Florida

Britney Padron hadn't spoken to her father in four days. But on Friday, she finally had three minutes to make sure he was OK. The last time her father, Jose Padron, spoke to her was on Monday from a detention center in El Paso. Days before, he was grabbed and detained by ICE in an immigration raid at a Tallahassee construction site. "He would always give us a hug and kiss our cheeks every time we left and returned home and I miss that so deeply right now," Britney said. She and other family members of those who were detained in Florida's largest immigration raid of the year are trying to raise money for lawyers to advocate for their loved ones, who can only call every so often for a few minutes at a time. They've set up GoFundMe online fundraisers, hoping others can help with the costly fees associated with the immigration process. Britney and her sister have tried to find lawyers who offer free consultations, but some immigration firms have asked $300 to $900 for a initial talk. As for taking on her father's case, she's been quoted $3,500 from one firm and $3,800 at another. Hilda Castro, whose husband was also detained, said a lawyer quoted her $5,500. Currently, her GoFundMe has raised none of the $1,600 she is asking for. Some of the detained laborers were on their way to Texas as soon as the day after the raid. Others were sent to Miami's Krome Detention Center. But not everyone could find their friends and family; ICE's Online Detainee Locator System has been unreliable in recent months. While Britney's father was in El Paso on Monday, the ICE Online Detainee Locator System only said "Texas" when she put in his information. Now, he's in the Rio Grande Detention Center in Laredo, Texas, with other laborers from Tallahassee. She was finally able to put money on his commissary tab on Friday. When Britney speaks to her dad on the phone, the call is always brief. Just three minutes, enough to check in and say "I love you." She was relieved to hear his voice on Friday. "Thank God," she said. It's a heartbreaking game of telephone to try to locate loved ones who haven't been able to update family on their removal status. Family members of her father's friends have given her information, but it's been hard to verify, which makes it even more difficult to relay that information to lawyers. Amanda Parrish said she hadn't spoken to her husband in four days, but he finally called Friday morning to say he was also at the Rio Grande Processing Center. In a public post on Facebook, Parrish shared a text-message conversation she had with his bond lawyer. "We haven't heard from him in four days. We're just really worried," Parrish wrote. "Hi, he hasn't been assigned to a judge yet. I'll see what I can do today to find out some information," the bond lawyer replied. Parrish and her husband got married in 2018, and he's been in the process of applying for citizenship since 2019. He was approved for his I-130, a "petition for alien relative," and was waiting for approval for permanent residency, also known as a Green Card. "This is unfair. This should not have happened," Parrish said. "He should not have made it all the way to Texas. He said he is fine but I know he's only telling me that because he does not want me to worry." On May 29, the day of the raid, she was outside of the chain-link fence when she saw her husband, Tino, walk onto a white school bus, hands bound. "I love you so much, and I will always fight for you. I hope you're doing OK and just know that we are doing everything possible for you," Parrish wrote in a Facebook post. Castro hasn't heard from her husband, Ramiro, since Saturday, when he called and said he was in El Paso. The Quincy resident said when her husband was detained by ICE, he was in the process of getting his I-130 as well. Castro is a citizen, and the two are married. Federal officials at the detention facility offered her husband paperwork to self-deport, but Castro told her husband not to sign anything. She's now trying to raise money for his defense. 'I found a lawyer in El Paso, but I need to figure out how I'm going to get the money to pay," she said. "I can't leave him there.' Help this family reunite NOW! ICE Raid, May 29 Tallahassee Support Legal Aid for Detained Husband Fighting for Jose Padron While Holding Our Family Together Ana Goñi-Lessan, state watchdog reporter for the USA TODAY Network – Florida, can be reached at agonilessan@ This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: GoFundMe pleas rise as ICE detainees await legal help

3 Things That Prove Car Buyers Don't Want EVs to Be Weird
3 Things That Prove Car Buyers Don't Want EVs to Be Weird

Miami Herald

time7 hours ago

  • Miami Herald

3 Things That Prove Car Buyers Don't Want EVs to Be Weird

The first mass-market electric vehicle (EV) was the Nissan LEAF, introduced in 2010, and it seems Nissan's goal was to separate the LEAF from gas-powered models by looking strange. The solid proboscis front fascia, the amorphous headlights that crept up to the A-pillars, the odd round rear haunches, and the protruding butt all made for an almost alien-like craft. And that was just the exterior. For more than a decade, automakers have tried to make electric vehicles stand out by making them… well, weird. Early EVs often looked and felt like they were from another planet. It was all part of a strategy: If you're going to drive the car of the future, shouldn't it look futuristic? But a funny thing happened on the way to mass EV adoption: car buyers balked. Turns out, most people don't want to drive a pod on wheels or relearn how to operate a vehicle just because it's electric. What consumers really want are EVs that fit seamlessly into their lives, not ones that scream, "I'm different!" Here are three things that prove car buyers want EVs to be familiar, rather than looking like weird rolling spacecraft. In the early EV days, standing out was the name of the game. It wasn't just the LEAF that worked too hard to be noticed. The BMW i3 was easily the brand's least fetching model with some of the worst bodywork we've ever laid eyes on. Sure, it looked like nothing else on the road, but that's not always a good thing. The original Toyota Prius-while not an EV but a hybrid pioneer-looked like Paul Bunyan was insulted by its environmental efforts and stepped on the nose of a once normal-looking subcompact sedan. But as more buyers entered the EV market, especially mainstream consumers who weren't early adopters or tech nerds, it became clear that outlandish designs were a turnoff. Today, many of the best-selling EVs are the ones that look like regular cars. They prove you can ditch the gas without ditching good taste. Take the Ford F-150 Lightning, for example. It looks nearly identical to the gas-powered F-150, the best-selling vehicle in America for decades. The typical bystander can't distinguish between the two, and that's no accident. Ford specifically chose to preserve the familiar shape and utility of the truck because it knows its customers don't want to drive a spaceship; they want to haul lumber, go camping, and tow boats, just like a gas truck owner. The Hyundai Ioniq 6 may look sleek and futuristic, but the Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6-both of which sell well-strike a balance between distinctive and practical, without being too radical. Even Tesla, a brand known for innovation, has stuck with relatively minimalist, subdued exterior styling on its most successful models, the Model 3 and Model Y. They're clean and modern, yes, but not weird. Okay, so there's the Cybertruck, but we all know how that's going. Then there's the 3rd-generation Nissan LEAF, a conventional-looking modern crossover that shed all of its old weirdness. If that's not enough proof, consider the new crop of EVs: the Honda Prologue, the restyled Toyota bZ, the Chevy Blazer EV, the Hummer EV, and the Hyundai Ioniq 5. These are EVs meant to look like real cars, and that's the hot trend now. If you think that some of the cabins in EVs were annoying and strange, you're not alone. One of the more frustrating trends in early EVs was the push to reinvent the wheel-literally and figuratively-when it came to controls. Carmakers, perhaps trying to emphasize that EVs were different, often went overboard with gimmicky interfaces. The first Nissan LEAF's bizarre interior looked like it came out of a '90s B sci-fi flick with its doughy white steering wheel and the orb-like shifter. It's the kind of stuff that makes the ovular 1996 Ford Taurus cabin look conventional. It also seems that numerous EV manufacturers thought their vehicles should have a tablet-sized center screen that controlled everything from the radio to the air vents. How about when Tesla eliminated stalks and buttons altogether in favor of a touch-and-swipe interface? For a while, EV cabins felt more like iPads on wheels than traditional cars. The result for drivers was often frustration with the unfamiliarity and the steep learning curve. Minimalism isn't always a good thing, tantamount to eyeglass frames that clamp on the nose with no temples to grab. Even Tesla's controversial decision to remove traditional turn signal stalks in the updated Model S and Model X has drawn widespread criticism. Many drivers are simply not ready to rewire their muscle memory every time they drive. Now, there appear to be more EVs that utilize physical controls, relatively standard shift knobs, and ergonomics that contribute to intuitive operation. The Chevy Blazer EV is one of them. It has big screens, yes, but switchgear to complement it. Hyundai and Kia have smartly kept a mix of physical and digital controls, allowing for a user experience that feels both modern and comfortable. The interior of the Honda Prologue is about as conventional as they get. If you were to get inside without knowing it's an EV, you'd never guess by looking at the dash, center stack, and center console. It has a normal-looking steering wheel, big stalk controls, and plenty of buttons and knobs for audio and climate. The lesson here is simple: car buyers might be open to new powertrains, but they don't want to relearn how to drive. Familiarity builds comfort, and comfort builds sales. Another clue that buyers want familiarity in their EVs is the transition away from names that were meant to set EVs apart from gas models. The Mercedes-Benz EQS and the Volkswagen ID series stand out the most. Both naming conventions seemed to have backfired. The EQS sedan and SUV don't carry the same panache as the S-Class or GLS-Class, as much as the electric versions try to follow in the footsteps of their gas-powered stablemates. VW's ID series is just plain awkward, especially when paired with non-words like and ID.2all. Even Toyota misfired with its hard-to-remember bZ4X name. Once you could finally memorize the name, you realized you didn't know which letters were uppercase or lowercase. Nobody should have to think about that. Now, it's just called bZ, and Toyota might do away with that shortly. Smarter name choices by manufacturers included the Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Kona Electric, and the Chevrolet Blazer EV, all recognized model names with electric labels attached to them. It's not just ditching what's strange, it's capitalizing on what has already worked. In the EV race, it has taken only a little over a decade for automakers to figure out that departing too much from what's familiar is bad and that radical reinvention isn't always the way to win hearts or wallets. As EVs begin to feel more like the cars people already love-visually, ergonomically, and functionally-they're proof that making the kind of improvements people care about results in better sales. Of course, EV buyers don't want their vehicles to be boring. They just don't want them to be weird. Give them something familiar, with all the benefits of electric driving and none of the alienation, and they're on board. Onlookers might say, "That's electric?" because they can't tell the difference, and that just might be the best kind of compliment. Copyright 2025 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Ram to enter trucks in 2026 with possible future move to Cup for Dodge
Ram to enter trucks in 2026 with possible future move to Cup for Dodge

Fox News

time10 hours ago

  • Fox News

Ram to enter trucks in 2026 with possible future move to Cup for Dodge

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Dodge parent company Stellantis will enter NASCAR racing in 2026 with its Ram brand competing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series with an eye toward going Cup racing in the years beyond. Whether that's 2027 or later — 2027 is possible but would be an aggressive timeline — remains to be seen as the announcement Sunday focused primarily on the truck, a much easier lift than going Cup racing. With all trucks in the series using an Ilmor engine and several common body elements, Ram just needed to design a nose, a hood, front fenders and a tail for its racing vehicle. Ram did not announce who will drive its trucks nor the teams that will field its trucks. Ram CEO Tim Kinuskis said he hopes to have somewhere between four and six trucks for the 2026 season opener at Daytona. "We're looking for a date to the prom right now [for trucks]," Kinuskis said. "So how am I going to get the Cup? That's going to depend on how I get to truck. So however we get to truck is going will obviously weigh heavily on do I have a path to Cup? "Our intention is not to do a one-hit wonder and go to truck and not to Cup. That's not our plan." Ram does not have cars so what brand of car — Dodge? Plymouth's possible rebirth? — is still to be determined although Dodge has a lengthy history in the sport and motorsports as a whole. "Ram is coming back to the truck series," Kinuskis said. "It has nothing to do with Dodge, despite the fact that everyone in the world calls it Dodge Ram. ... If we go back to Cup, which is our intention, Ram doesn't have a car, so obviously that would have to be Dodge coming back. "But I'm not making that announcement. I'm not saying Dodge is back. Don't put that headline. But when we get to that point, it wouldn't be Ram, obviously." There is speculation in the industry that GMS, which has competed in all three national series over the last decade and was eventually bought out by Jimmie Johnson in the rebranding to Legacy Motor Club, will be involved in building chassis and/or fielding trucks for Ram. Kinuskis promised a program that will elevate fan engagement, and YouTube star Cleetus McFarland, who has competed in some ARCA races, has been linked to the Ram program. Dodge had Cup teams from 2001-12 before exiting the sport on a high note with Brad Keselowski winning a Cup title at Team Penske. When Penske left for Ford, Dodge had trouble landing a premier team and opted to leave the sport. No new manufacturer has entered the sport since Toyota did so in 2004 in trucks and 2007 in Cup. Kinuskis also said when he returned to Ram earlier this year, his two goals were to reintroduce the Hemi engine and get into NASCAR, where 50 percent of its fan base own trucks. "It's always bothered me," Kinuskis said. "We've always been looking for a way to get back. It took us a long time to find the absolute right time." To re-enter Cup would take some engine development and significant body design, a process that would take at least 18 months, NASCAR Chief Racing Development Officer John Probst said. "The last time that engine ran was 2012 — the core components of the block, the head, the manifold, are all still relevant," Probst said. "Our existing engine builders develop their engines every year. There's been a gap there, so there'd be some development of that engine needed. "But from the basic building blocks they could start from that and do some catch-up development." Kinuskis wouldn't talk about a timeline Sunday for going to Cup racing. "Our full intention is to be back in Cup," Kinuskis said. "But right now we're on a path for Daytona next year with truck, with our eye on when we can be in Cup after that. TBD. "We're a fly with no net right now trying to get to Daytona. That's our focus right now." Keselowski, currently a driver and co-owner at RFK Racing, said the trucks are the right entry point for a manufacturer as it doesn't have to immediately get an engine available and because of the parity in the series. "[The truck series] is a great place for an OEM [original equipment manufacturer] to enter NASCAR and really kind of get that appetite going for the Cup Series," Keselowski said. "It's a big jump from the truck series to the Cup Series, but nonetheless it's a great entry point for OEMs, and hopefully they aren't the only one that will enter the truck series." Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and IndyCar for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store