A 31-year-old Calera man was killed early Sunday when the Mercedes-Benz he was riding in left Alabama 119, struck an embankment and overturned about a mile north of Pelham. Zachary Fogle was ejected from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene, while the driver and another passenger were hurt badly enough to be hospitalized.
Fogle was a passenger in a 2020 Mercedes-Benz AMG C63 that crashed near mile marker 23 at about 2:56 a.m., according to WBMA. The station reported that Fogle was not wearing a seat belt, citing the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. The driver and the other passenger were both injured and taken to UAB Hospital, though their names have not been released.
ALEA’s Highway Patrol Division is now investigating the crash, per the same report. No additional details about what caused the vehicle to leave the roadway, or the conditions of the surviving occupants, have been made public.
A County Already Grappling With Rising Road Deaths
Fogle’s death adds to a troubling run of fatal crashes in Shelby County. The county logged 17 traffic fatalities in 2024, and had already matched that total by late September 2025, according to data reported by the Shelby County Reporter. That followed 20 traffic deaths countywide in 2023, five of which involved alcohol or drugs.
The newspaper reported that Shelby County Sheriff's deputies completed 892 crash reports in 2024, up from 720 in 2023, while traffic accident calls decreased from 2,925 in 2023 to 2,410 in 2024. County officials have pointed to distraction, speeding and impairment as the human factors most often behind the crashes, and the Reporter noted that six out of 10 Alabamians killed in crashes statewide were not wearing seat belts, according to Alabama Department of Transportation data.
The corridor's heavy traffic volume compounds the risk. Interstate 65 carries roughly 130,000 drivers a day through the area, including about 70,000 between Alabaster and Calera alone, per the Shelby County Reporter's report. Statewide, motor-vehicle fatalities have climbed nearly 19 percent over the past decade, the paper noted.
Another Recent Ejection Death in the County
Fogle's crash echoes another fatal wreck in Shelby County just weeks earlier. Joel S. Wallace, a 70-year-old Harpersville man, died after a crash on Shelby County 51 near Shelby County 280 in Westover, al.com reported. Wallace's Ford F-150 was struck by a Toyota Prius driven by an 18-year-old whose name troopers did not release, sending his truck off the roadway, into utility equipment and rolling over.
Like Fogle, Wallace was not wearing a seat belt and was ejected from his vehicle before being taken to UAB Hospital, where he later died. Alabama state troopers continued investigating that crash, al.com reported, underscoring how often ejection and seat belt use factor into the county's deadliest wrecks.
No further details on Fogle's crash have been released. ALEA's Highway Patrol Division remains the lead agency on the investigation.
