Asheville crash on Patton Avenue leads to hit-and-run arrest, chase

A collision on Patton Avenue at NC 63 escalated fast: a moped was struck, the other driver fled, and Asheville police and the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office later helped bring in a 39-year-old man now facing felony charges.

Officers responded on Thursday, April 23, to the crash in West Asheville and found the moped and its rider still at the scene. Court paperwork identified the rider as Cameron Ferguson. Ferguson reported an injury but declined medical treatment where the crash happened.

The other vehicle, according to the court documents, had rear-ended the moped before taking off. Law enforcement later identified the driver as Joshua Thomas Justice, who was taken into custody after the sheriff’s office witnessed the collision and pursued the vehicle. Justice now faces felony flee to elude, felony hit and run, driving while license revoked, reckless driving and failing to reduce speed to avoid a collision. Court paperwork also said a 12-year-old child was in the vehicle during the pursuit, adding a child-safety concern to an already serious roadway case.

The crash happened on one of Asheville’s most heavily traveled corridors. The City of Asheville’s Downtown Patton Avenue Corridor Feasibility Study covers Patton Avenue from the Jeff Bowen Bridge to Pack Square and is intended to guide transportation, land-use and urban-design changes. City officials say that planning effort is meant to improve safety, accessibility, connectivity and multimodal travel on a corridor that serves drivers, people walking and people biking through the western gateway to downtown.

The case also highlights how quickly a traffic crash can turn into a broader public-safety investigation when a driver leaves the scene. A moped offers far less protection than a passenger vehicle, and the presence of an injury, even one not treated at the scene, underscores how vulnerable riders are on busy roads like Patton Avenue.

For residents looking for more detail on crashes or police incidents in Asheville, the city says most reports from Jan. 1, 2003, onward can be searched and downloaded online. That database can help connect a single collision to the wider record of traffic enforcement and crash patterns on one of the city’s most important roads.