Bad Choices or Just Unfortunate?

Overall this short story seemed to be filled with horrible events; but the question is were these events just unfortunate or did they occur due to bad decisions. This first event comes straight from the beginning of the story as the family choose to go to florida despite the fact that a convict named "The Misfit" had escaped from prison and was heading to Florida. This automatically creates the feeling that they made a bad choice. However everyone but the grandmother wants to go and to them the chances of seeing the ex-con would be very slim. The next event can be seen as a bad choice as the grandma decides to smuggle a cat into their car without her sons permission. The smuggled cat then escapes from its cage and causes the car to crash by jumping on Baileys shoulder, the car proceeded to spin until it came to a complete stop. On the other hand it could be seen as unfortunate as the basket is opened by accident. The final event in the book can definitely be seen as a bad choice by the grandmother as she only shows interest in saving herself and in the end she is killed anyway. 

Overall it has to be said that all the bad decisions made seem to involve the grandmother and her selfish attitude, and it seems that the family are being punished for the bad choices the grandmother is making. Creating the feeling of sorrow for the family as they are being punished for the grandmothers mistakes.